 Chapter 21 of the Beetle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Alan Winteroud. The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Chapter 21. The Terror in the Night. Sydney, she cried, I'm so glad that I can see you. She might be, but at that moment I could scarcely assert that I was a sharer of her joy. I told you that if trouble overtook me I should come to you, and I'm in trouble now, such strange trouble. So was I, and in perplexity as well. An idea occurred to me. I would outwit her eavesdropping father. Come with me into the house, tell me all about it there. She refused to budge. No, I will tell you all about it here. She looked about her, as it struck me clearly. This is just the sort of place in which to unfold a tale like mine. It looks uncanny, but, but me no buts. Sydney, don't torture me. Let me stop here where I am. Don't you see I'm haunted? She had seated herself. Now she stood up, holding her hands out in front of her in a state of extraordinary agitation. Her manner as wild as her words. Why are you staring at me like that? Do you think I'm mad? I wonder if I am going mad. Sydney, do people suddenly go mad? You're a bit of everything. You're a bit of a doctor too. Feel my pulse. There it is. Tell me if I'm ill. I felt her pulse. I did not need it swift beating to inform me that fever of some sort was in her veins. I gave her something in a glass. She held it up to the level of her eyes. What's this? It's a decoction of my own. You might not think it, but my brain sometimes gets into a whirl. I use it as a sedative. It will do you good. She drained the glass. It's done me good already. I believe it has. That's being something like a doctor. Well Sydney, the storm has almost burst. Last night Papa forbade me to speak to Paul Lessingham by way of a prelude. Exactly. Mr. Linden. Yes. Mr. Linden. That's Papa. I fancy we almost quarreled. You know Papa said some surprising things, but it's a way he has. He's apt to say surprising things. He's the best father in the world, but it's not in his nature to like a really clever person. Your good high-dried old Tory never can. I've always thought that's why he's so fond of you. Thank you. I presume that is the reason though it has not occurred to me before. Since her entry I had the best of my ability been turning the position over in my mind. I came to the conclusion that all things considered her father had probably as much right to be a share of his daughter's confidence as I had, even from the vantage of the screen. And that for him to hear a few home truths proceeding from her lips might serve to clear the air. From such a clearance, the lady would not be likely to come off worse. I had not the faintest inkling of what was the actual purport of her visit. She started off, as it seemed to me, at a tangent. Did I tell you last night about what took place yesterday morning? About the adventure of my finding the man? Not a word. I believe I meant to. I'm half disposed to think he's brought me trouble. Is there some superstition about evil befalling whoever shelters a homeless stranger? Will hope not for humanity's sake. I fancy there is. I feel sure there is. Anyway, listen to my story. Yesterday morning before breakfast, to be accurate between eight and nine, I looked out of the window and I saw a crowd in the street. I sent Peter out to see what was the matter. He came back and said there was a man in a fit. I went out to look at the man in the fit. I found lying on the ground, in the center of the crowd, a man who, but for the tattered remnants of what had apparently once been a cloak, would have been stark naked. He was covered with dust and dirt and blood, a dreadful sight. As you know, I have had my smattering of instruction in first aid to the injured, and that kind of thing. So as no one else seemed to have any sense, and the man seemed as good as dead, I thought I would try my hand. Directly I knelt down beside him, what do you think he said? Thank you? Nonsense. He said in such a queer, hollow, croaking voice, Paul Lessingham. I was dreadfully startled. To hear a perfect stranger, a man in his condition uttered that name in such a fashion, to me, of all people in the world, took me aback. The policeman who was holding his head remarked, that's the first time he's opened his mouth. I thought he was dead. He opened his mouth the second time. A convulsive movement went all over him, and he exclaimed with a strange earnestness, and so loudly that you might have heard him at the other end of the street. Be warned, Paul Lessingham. Be warned. It was very silly of me, perhaps, but I cannot tell you how his words and his manner, the two together, affected me. Well, the long and the short of it was that I had taken him into the house and washed and put to bed, and I had the doctor sent for. The doctor could make nothing of it at all. He reported that the man seemed to be suffering from some sort of cataleptic seizure. I could see that he thought it likely to turn out almost as interesting a case as I did. Did you acquaint your father with the addition to his household? She looked at me quizzically. You see, when one has such a father as mine, one cannot tell him everything at once. There are occasions on which one requires time. I felt that this would be wholesome hearing for old Lyndon. Last night, after Papa and I had exchanged our little courtesies, which, it is to be hoped, were to Papa's satisfaction since they were not to be mine. I went to see the patient. I was told that he had neither eaten nor drunk, moved nor spoken. But so soon as I approached his bed, he showed signs of agitation. He half raised himself upon his pillow, and he called out as if he had been addressing some large assembly. I can't describe to you how the dreadful something which was in his voice and on his face, Paul Lessingham, beware, the beetle. When she said that, I was startled. Are you sure those were the words he used? Quite sure. Do you think I could mistake them, especially after what has happened since? I hear them ringing in my ears. They haunt me all the time. She put her hands up to her face, as if to veil something from her eyes. I was becoming more and more convinced that there was something about the Apostles' connection with his Oriental friend which needed probing to the bottom. What sort of man is he to look at this patient of yours? I had my doubts as to the gentleman's identity, which her words dissolved, only, however, to increase my mystification in another direction. He seems to be between 30 and 40. He has light hair and straggly with sandy whiskers. He is so thin as to be nothing but skin and bone. The doctor says it's a case of starvation. You say he has light hair and sandy whiskers? Are you sure the whiskers are real? She opened her eyes. Of course they're real. Why shouldn't they be real? Does he strike you as being a foreigner? Certainly not. He looks like an Englishman, and he speaks like one, and not, I should say, of the lower class. It is true that there is a very curious, a weird quality in his voice, what I have heard of it, but it is not un-English. If it is catalepsy he is suffering from, then it is a kind of catalepsy I have not heard of. Have you ever seen a clairvoyant? I nodded. He seems to me to be in that state of clairvoyance. Of course the doctor laughed when I told him so, but we know what doctors are, and I still believe that he is in some condition of the kind. When he said that last night he struck me as being under what those sort of people call the influence, and that whoever had him under influence was forcing him to speak against his will, for the words came from his lips as if they had been rung from him in agony. Knowing what I did know, that struck me as being rather a remarkable conclusion for her to have reached by the exercise of her own unaided powers of intuition, but I did not choose to let her know I thought so. Dear Marjorie, you who pride yourself on having your imagination so strictly under control, on suffering it to take no errant's flight, is not the fact that I do so pride myself, prove that I am not likely to make assertions wildly, prove at any rate to you? Listen to me. When I left that unfortunate creature's room I had had a nurse sent for, I left him in her charge, and reached my own bedroom. I was possessed by a profound conviction that some appalling, intangible, but very real danger was at that moment threatening Paul. Remember, you had had an exciting evening, and a discussion with your father. Your patient's words came as a climax. That is what I told myself, or rather that was what I tried to tell myself, because in some extraordinary fashion I had lost the command of my powers of reflection. Precisely. It was not precisely, or at least it was not precisely in the sense you mean. You may laugh at me, Sidney, but I had an altogether indescribable feeling, a feeling which amounted to knowledge that I was in the presence of the supernatural. Nonsense. It was not nonsense. I wish it had been nonsense. As I have said, I was conscious, completely conscious that some frightful peril was assailing Paul. I did not know what it was, but I did know that it was something altogether awful, of which merely to think was to shudder. I wanted to go to his assistance. I tried to more than once, but I couldn't, and I knew that I couldn't. I knew that I couldn't move as much as a finger to help him. Stop. Let me finish. I told myself that it was absurd, but it wouldn't do. Absurd or not, there was a terror with me in the room. I knelt down and I prayed, but the words wouldn't come. I tried to ask God to remove this burden from my brain, but my longings wouldn't shape themselves into words, and my tongue was palsied. I don't know how long I struggled, but at last I came to understand that, for some reason, God had chosen to leave me to fight the fight alone. So I got up and undressed and went to bed, and that was the worst of all. I had sent my maid away in the first rush of my terror, afraid, and I think ashamed, to let her see my fear. Now I would have given anything to summon her back again, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't even ring the bell. So as I say, I got into bed. She paused, as if to collect her thoughts. To listen to her words and to think of the suffering which they meant to her was almost more than I could endure. I would have thrown away the world to have been able to take her in my arms and soothe her fears. I knew her to be, in general, the least hysterical of young women. Little want to become the prey of mere delusions, and incredible though it sounded, I had an innate conviction that, even in its wildest periods, her story had some sort of basis in solid fact. What that basis amounted to, it would be my business, at any and every cost, quickly to determine. You know how you have always laughed at me, because of my objection to cockroaches and how, in spring, the neighborhood of Maybugs has always may be uneasy? As soon as I got into bed, I felt that something of the kind was in the room. Something of what kind? Some kind of beetle. I could hear the whoring of its wings. I could hear it droning in the air. I knew that it was hovering above my head, that it was coming lower and lower, nearer and nearer. I hid myself. I covered myself all over with the clothes. Then I felt it bumping against the coverlet. And Sidney? She drew closer. Her blanched cheeks and frightened eyes made my heart bleed. Her voice became but an echo of itself. It followed me. Marjorie. It got into the bed. You've imagined it. I didn't imagine it. I heard it crawl along the sheets, till it found a way between them, and then it crawled towards me. And I felt it against my face. And it's there now. Where? She raised the forefinger of her left hand. There. Can't you hear it droning? She listened intently. I listened too. Oddly enough, at that instant, the droning of an insect did become audible. It's only a bee, child, which has found its way through the open window. I wish it were only a bee. I wish it were. Sidney, don't you feel as if you were in the presence of evil? Don't you want to get away from it? Back into the presence of God? Marjorie. Pray, Sidney, pray. I can't. I don't know why, but I can't. She flung her arms about my neck and pressed herself against me in paroxysmal agitation. The violence of her emotion bade fair to unmanned me too. It was so unlike Marjorie, and I would have given my life to save her from a toothache. She kept repeating her own words as if she could not help it. Pray, Sidney, pray. At last I did as she wished me. At least there is no harm in praying. I never heard of it as bringing a hurt to anyone. I repeated aloud the Lord's prayer the first time for I know not how long. As the divine sentences came from my lips, hesitatingly enough I make no doubt. Her tremors ceased. She became calmer until as I reached the last great petition to deliver us from evil, she lost her arms from about my neck and dropped upon her knees close to my feet. And she joined me in the closing words as a sort of chorus. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever I'm in. When the prayer was ended, we both of us were still. She with her head bowed and her hands clasped, and I was something tugging at my heartstrings which I had not felt there for many and many a year, almost as if it had been my mother's hand. I daresay that sometimes she does stretch out her hand from her place among the angels to touch my heartstrings, and I know nothing of it all the while. As the silence still continued, I chanced to glance up, and there was old Linden peeping at us from his hiding place behind the screen. The look of amazed perplexity which was on his big red face struck me with such a keen sense of the incongruous that it was all I could do to keep from laughter. Apparently the sight of us did nothing to lighten the fog which was in his brain, and she stammered out in what was possibly intended for a whisper. Is she mad? The whisper, if it was meant for a whisper, was more than sufficiently audible to catch his daughter's ears. She started, raised her head, sprang to her feet, turned, and saw her father. Papa! Immediately her sire was seized with an excess of stuttering. What's the devil's meaning of this? Her utterance was clear enough. My fancier parent found it almost painfully clear. Rather, it is for me to ask, what is the meaning of this? Is it possible that all the time you have actually been concealed behind that screen? Unless I am mistaken, the old gentleman cowered before the directness of his daughter's gaze, and endeavored to conceal the fact by an explosion of passion. Don't you speak to me like that, you un-dudiful girl! I'm your father! You certainly are my father, though I was unaware until now that my father was capable of playing the part of an eavesdropper. Rage rendered him speechless, or at any rate he chose to let us believe that it was the determined cause of his continuing silent. So Marjorie turned to me, and on the whole I had rather she had not. Her manner was very different from what it had been just now. It was more than civil, it was freezing. Am I to understand, Mr. Atherton, that this has been done with your cognizance, that while you suffered me to pour out my heart to you unchecked, you were aware all the time that there was a listener behind the screen? I became keenly aware, on a sudden, that I had borne my share in playing her a very shabby trick. I should have liked to throw old Lyndon through the window. The thing was not of my contriving. Had I the opportunity, I would have compelled Mr. Lyndon to face you when you came in. But your distress caused me to lose my balance, and you will do me the justice to remember that I endeavored to induce you to come with me into another room. But I do not seem to remember your hinting at there being any particular reason why I should have gone. You never gave me a chance. Sidney, I had not thought you would have played me such a trick. When she said that, in such a tone, the woman whom I loved, I could have hammered my head against the wall, the hound I was to have treated her so scurvally. Perceiving I was crushed, she turned again to face her father, cool, calm, stately. She was, on a sudden, once more, the marjorie with whom I was familiar. The demeanor of parent and child was in striking contrast. If appearances went fraught, the odds were heavy that in any encounter, which might be coming, the senior would suffer. I hope, Papa, that you are going to tell me that there has been some curious mistake and that nothing was farther from your intention than to listen at a keyhole. What would you have thought and said if I had attempted to play the spy on you and I have always understood that men were so particular on points of honor? Old Endon was still hardly fit to do much else than Splutter, certainly not qualified to chop phrases with his sharp-tongued maiden. Don't talk to me like that, girl. I believe you're stark mad. He turned to me. What was that tomfoolery she was talking to you about? To what do you elude? About a rubbishing beetle and, goodness knows what, the diseased and morbid imagination reared on the literature of the gutter. I never thought that a child of mine could have sunk to such a depth. Now, Atherton, I ask you to tell me frankly, what do you think of a child who behaves as she is done, who takes a nameless vagabond into the house and conceals his presence from her father and mark the sequel. Even the vagabond warns her against the rascal Lessingham. Now, Atherton, tell me what you think of a girl who behaves like that. I shrug my shoulders. I know very well what you do think of her. Don't be afraid to say it out because she's present. No, Sidney. Don't be afraid. I saw that her eyes were dancing in a manner of speaking. Her looks brightened under the sunshine of her father's displeasure. Let's hear what you think of her as a man of the world. Pray, Sidney, do. What do you feel for her in your heart of hearts? Yes, Sidney. What do you feel for me in your heart of hearts? The baggage beamed with heartless sweetness. She was making a mock of me. Her father turned as if he would have rent her. Don't you speak until you're spoken to. Atherton, I hope I'm not deceived in you. I hope you're the man I took you for. That you're willing and ready to play the part of an honest friend to this misguided simpleton. This is not the time for mincing words. It's the time for candid speech. Tell this weak-minded young woman right out whether this man Lessingham is or is not a damned scoundrel. Papa, do you really think that Sidney's opinion or your opinion is likely to alter the facts? Do you hear, Atherton? Tell this wretched girl the truth. My dear Mr. Linden, I have already told you that I know nothing either for or against Mr. Lessingham except what is known to all the world. Exactly, and all the world knows him to be a miserable adventurer who is scheming to entrap my daughter. I'm bound to say, since you press me, that your language appears to be unnecessarily strong. Atherton, I'm ashamed of you. You see, Sidney, even Papa is ashamed of you. Now you are outside the pale. My dear Papa, if you will allow me to speak, I will tell you what I know to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That Mr. Lessingham is a man with great gifts Permit me, Papa. He is a man of genius. He is a man of honor. He is a man of the loftiest ambitions of the highest aims. He has dedicated his whole life to the improvement of the conditions amidst which the less fortunate of his fellow countrymen are at present compelled to exist. That seems to me to be an object well worth having. He has asked me to share his life work, and I have told him that I will, when and where and how he wants me to, and I will. I do not suppose his life has been free from peccadillos. I have no delusion on that point. What man's life has? Who among men can claim to be without sin? Even the members of our highest families sometimes hide behind screens. But I know that he is, at least, as good a man as ever I met. I am persuaded that I shall never meet a better, and I thank God that I have found favor in his eyes. Goodbye, Sidney. I suppose I shall see you again, Papa. With the mereest inclination of her head to both of us, she straightway left the room. Lyndon would have stopped her. Stay, you! he stuttered. But I caught him by the arm. If you will be advised by me, you will let her go. No good purpose will be served by a multiplication of words. Atherton, I am disappointed in you. You haven't behaved as I expected. I haven't received from you the assistance which I looked for. My dear Lyndon, it seems to me that your method of diverting the young lady from the path which she has set herself to tread is calculated to send her furiously along it. Con-found the woman? Con-found the woman? I don't mind telling you in confidence that at times her mother was the devil and I'll be hanged if her daughter isn't worse. What was the tomfoolery she was talking to you about? Is she mad? No, I don't think she's mad. I've never heard such stuff. It made my blood run cold to hear her. What's the matter with the girl? Well, you must excuse my saying that I don't fancy you quite understand women. I don't, and I don't want to either. I hesitated, then resolved on a pterodidil in Marjorie's interest. Marjorie is high strung, extremely sensitive. Her imagination is quickly aflame. Perhaps last night you drove her as far as was safe. You heard for yourself how in consequence she suffered. You don't want people to say you have driven her into a lunatic asylum. Good heavens, no. I'll send for the doctor directly. I'll get home. I'll have the best opinion in town. You'll do nothing of the kind. You'll only make her worse. What you have to do is be patient with her and have peace. As for this affair of Lessingham's, I have a suspicion that it will not be all of such plain sailing as she supposes. What do you mean? I mean nothing. I only wish you to understand that until you hear from me again, you had better let matter slide. Give the girl her head. Give the girl her head? Haven't I given the girl her head all her life? He looked at his watch. He began scurrying towards the front door. I follow that as heels. I've got a committee meeting at the club most important. For weeks they've been giving us the worst food you ever tasted in your life. Played havoc on my digestion and I'm going to tell them if things aren't changed, they'll have to pay my doctor's bills. As for that man, Lessingham, as he spoke, he himself opened the hall door and there standing on the step was that man, Lessingham, himself. Lyndon was a picture. The apostle was as cool as a cucumber. He held out his hand. Good morning, Mr. Lyndon. What delightful weather we are having. Lyndon put his hand behind his back and behaved as stupidly as he very well could have done. You will understand, Mr. Lessingham, that in future I don't know you and that I shall decline to recognize you anywhere and that what I say applies equally to any member of my family. With his hat very much on the back of his head, he went down the steps like an inflated turkey cock. End of Chapter 21. Recording by Alan Winteroud, boomcoach.blogspot.com Chapter 22 of The Beatles. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Alan Winteroud, The Beatles by Richard Marsh. Chapter 22. The Haunted Man. To have received the cut discourteous from his future father-in-law might have been the most common place of incidents. Lessingham events not a trace of discomposure. So far as I could judge, I saw a series of episodes whatever, behaving exactly as if nothing had happened. He merely waited until Mr. Linden was well off the steps, then turning to me he placidly observed, interrupting you again, you see, may I? The sight of him had set up such a turmoil in my veins that for the moment I could not trust myself to speak. I felt acutely that an explanation with him mattered, and that quickly. Providence could not have thrown him more opportunity in the way. If before he went away we did not understand each other a good deal more clearly, upon certain points the fault should not be mine. Without a responsive word, turning on my heels, I led the way into the laboratory. Whether he noticed anything peculiar in my demeanor, I could not tell. Within he looked about him with a purely facial smile, the sight of which had always engendered in me a certain distrust of him. Do you always receive visitors in here? By no means. What is this? Stooping down, he picked up something from the floor. It was a lady's purse, a gorgeous affair, of crimson leather and gleaming gold. Whether it was margaries or Miss Graylings I could not tell. He watched me as I examined it. Is it yours? No. It is not mine. Placing his hat and umbrella on one chair, he placed himself upon another, very leisurely. Crossing his legs, laying his folded hands upon his knees, he sat and looked at me. I was quite conscious of his observation, but endured it in silence, being a little wishful that he should begin. Presently he had, as I suppose, enough of looking at me and spoke. Atherton, what is the matter with you? Have I done something to offend you too? Why do you ask? Your manner seems a little singular. You think so? I do. What have you come to see me about? Just now nothing. I like to know where I stand. His manner was courteous, easy, even graceful. I was outmaneuvered. I understood the man sufficiently well to be aware that when once he was on the defensive, the first blow would have to come from me, so I struck it. I also like to know where I stand. Lessing him, I am aware and you know that I am aware that you have made certain overtures to Miss Lyndon. That is a fact in which I am keenly interested. As how? The Lyndons and the Athertons are not the acquaintances of one generation only. Marjorie Lyndon and I have been friends since childhood. She looks upon me as a brother. As a brother? As a brother? Yes. Mr. Lyndon regains me as a son. He has given me his confidence as I believe you are aware. Marjorie has given me hers and now I want you to give me yours. What do you want to know? I wish to explain my position before I say what I have to say because I want you to understand me clearly. I believe honestly that the thing I most desire in this world is to see Marjorie Lyndon happy. If I thought she would be happy with you I should say God speed you both and I should congratulate you with all my heart because I think that you would have won the best girl in the whole world to be your wife. I think so too. But before I did that I should have to see at least some reasonable probability that she would be happy with you. Why should she not? Will you answer a question? What is the question? What is the story in your life of which you stand in such hideous terror? There was a perceptible pause before he answered. Explain yourself. No explanation is needed. You know perfectly well what I mean. You credit me with miraculous acumen. Don't juggle Lessingham. Be frank. The frankness should not be all on one side. There is that in your frankness. Although you may be unconscious of it which some men might not unreasonably resent. Do you resent it? That depends. If you are irrigating to yourself the right to place yourself between Miss Lyndon and me I do resent it strongly. Answer my question. I answer no question with his address to me in such a tone. He was as calm as you please. I recognized that already I was in peril of losing my temper which was not at all what I desired. I eyed him intently. He returned me look for look. His countenance betrayed no sign of a guilty conscience. I had not seen him more completely at his ease. He smiled facially and also as it seemed to me I am bound to admit that his bearing showed not the faintest shadow of resentment and that in his eyes there was a gentleness, a softness which I had not observed in them before. I could almost have suspected him of being sympathetic. In this matter you must know I stand in the place of Mr. Lyndon. Well surely you must understand that before anyone is allowed to think of marriage with Marjorie Lyndon he will have to show that his past as the advertisements have it will bear the fullest investigation. Is that so? Will your past bear the fullest investigation? I winced. At any rate it is known to all the world. Is it? Forgive me if I say I doubt it. I doubt if of any wise man that can be said with truth. In all our lives there are episodes which we keep to ourselves. I felt that was so true that for the instant I hardly knew what to say. But there are episodes and episodes when it comes to a man being haunted one draws the line. Haunted as you are he got up. Atherton I think that I understand you but I fear that you do not understand me. He went to where a self acting mercurial air pump was standing on a shelf. What is this curious arrangement of glass tubes and bulbs? I do not think that you do understand me or you would know that I am in no mood to be trifled with. Is that some kind of an exhaust or? My dear Lessingham, I am entirely at your service. I intend to have an answer to my question before you leave this room. But in the meanwhile your convenience is mine. There are some very interesting things here which you might care to see. Marvelous is it not how the human intellect progresses from conquest under conquest. Among the ancients the progression had proceeded farther than with us. In what respect? For instance, in the affair of the apotheosis of the beetle I saw it take place last night. Where? Here within a few feet of where you are standing. Are you serious? Perfectly. What did you see? I saw the legendary apotheosis of the beetle performed last night before my eyes with a gaudy magnificence at which the legends never hinted. That is odd. I once thought that I saw something of the kind myself. So I understand. From whom? From a friend of yours. From a friend of mine? Are you sure it was from a friend of mine? The man's attempt at coolness did but it did not deceive me. That he thought I was endeavoring to bluff him out of his secret I perceived quite clearly. That it was a secret which you would only render with his life I was beginning to suspect. Had it not been for Marjorie I could have cared nothing. His affairs were his affairs. Though I realized perfectly well that there was something about the man which from the scientific explorer's point of view might be well worth finding out. Still as I say if it had not been for Marjorie I should have let it go. But since she was so intimately concerned in it I wondered more and more what it could be. My attitude toward what is called the supernatural is an open one. That all things are possible I unhesitatingly believe. I have even in my short time seen so many so called impossibilities prove possible. That we know everything I doubt. That our great great great greats and ansires our forebears of thousands of years ago of the extinct civilizations knew more on some subjects than we do I think at least probable. All the legends can hardly be false. Because men claim to be able to do things in those days which we cannot do and which we do not know how they did we profess to think that their claims are finally dismissed by exclaiming lies. But it is not so sure. For my part what I had seen I had seen. I had seen some devil's trick played before my very eyes. Some trick of the same sort seem to have been played upon my marjorie. I repeat that I write my marjorie because to me she will always be my marjorie. It had driven her half out of her senses. As I looked at Lessingham I seemed to see her at his side as I had seen her not long ago with her white drawn face and staring eyes dumb with an agony of fear. Her life was bidding fair to be knit with his what Oopa's tree of horror was rooted in his very bones. The thought that her sweet purity was likely to be engulfed in a devil's sloth in which he was swallowing was not to be endured. As I realized that the man was more than my match at the game which I was playing in which such vital interests were at stake my hands itched to clutch him by the throat and try another way. Doubtless my face revealed my feelings because presently he said Are you aware how strangely you are looking at me, Atherton? For my countenance Amir I think you would be surprised to see it in your own. I drew back from him. I dare say so only. Not so surprised as yesterday morning you would have been to have seen yours at the mere sight of a pictured scarab. How easily you quarrel. I do not quarrel. Then perhaps it's I. If that is so then at once the quarrels ended. Poof! It's done. Mr. Linde and I fear because politically we differ regards me as an anathema. As he put some of his spirit into you you are a wiser man. I am aware that you are an adept with words. But this is a case in which words only will not serve. Then what will serve? I am myself beginning to wonder and I. As you so courteously suggest I believe I am wiser than Linden. I do not care for your politics or for what you call your politics one thing. I do not care if you are as other men are as I am not unspotted from the world but I do care if you are leprous and I believe you are. Atherton! I have known you. I have been conscious of there being something about you which I found difficult to diagnose. In an unwholesome sense something out of the common unnatural. An atmosphere of your own events so far as you are concerned have during the last few days move quickly. They have thrown an uncomfortably lurid light on that peculiarity of yours which I have noticed. I do not care for your attentions to Miss Linden's hand or I shall play certain facts before that lady and if necessary publish them to the world. He grew visibly paler but he smiled facially. You have your own way of conducting a conversation Mr. Atherton. What are the events to whose rapid transit you are eluding? Who is the individual or the fashionate dead of night? Is that one of the facts with which you propose to tickle the public ear? Is that the only explanation which you have to offer? Proceed for the moment with your indictment. I am not so unobservant as you appear to imagine. There were features about the episode which struck me forcibly at the time and which have struck me more forcibly since. To suggest as you did yesterday morning in the ordinary case of burglary or that the man was a lunatic is an absurdity. Pardon me, I did nothing of the kind. Then what do you suggest? I suggested and do suggest nothing. All the suggestions come from you. You went very much out of your way to beg me to keep the matter quiet. There is an appearance of suggestion about that. You take a jaundiced view of all my actions, Mr. Atherton. Nothing to me could seem more natural. However, proceed. He had his hands behind his back and rested them on the edge of the table against which he was leaning. He was undoubtedly ill at ease but so far I had not made the impression on him either mentally or morally which I desired. Who is your oriental friend? I do not follow you. Are you sure? I am certain. Who is your oriental friend? I was not aware that I had one. Do you swear that? He laughed. A strange laugh. Do you seek to catch me tripping? You conduct your case with too much animus. You must allow me to grasp the exact purport of your inquiry before I can undertake to reply to it on oath. Are you not aware that at present there is in London an individual who claims to have had a very close and a very curious acquaintance with you in the east? I am not. That you swear? That I do swear. That is singular. Why is it singular? Because I fancy that that individual haunts you. Haunts me. Haunts you. You jest. You think so? You remember that picture of the scarab us frightened you into a state of semi-ideacy? You use strong language. I know what you allude to. Do you mean to say that you don't know that you were indebted for that to your oriental friend? I don't understand you. Are you sure? Certainly I am sure. It occurs to me, Mr. Atherton, that an explanation is demanded from you rather than from me. Are you aware that the purport of my presence here is to ask you how that picture found its way into your room? It was projected by the lord of the beetle. The words were chance ones, but they struck a mark. The lord, he faltered and stopped. He showed signs of discomposure. I will be frank with you, since frankness is what you ask. His smile that time was obviously forced. Recently I have been the victim of delusions. There was a pause before the word of a singular kind. I have feared that they were the result of mental overstrain. Is it possible that you could enlighten me as to their source? I was silent. He was putting a great deal of strain upon himself, but the twitching of his lips betrayed him a little more and I should reach the other side of Mr. Lessingham, the side which he kept hidden from the world. Who is this individual whom you speak of as my oriental friend? Being your friend, you should know better than I do. What sort of man is he to look at? I did not say it was a man, but I presume it is a man. I did not say so. He seemed for a moment to hold his breath and he looked at me with eyes which were not friendly. Then with a display of self-command which did him credit, he became a man of your dignity which well became him. Atherton, consciously or unconsciously, you are doing me a serious injustice. I do not know what conception it is which you have formed of me or on what the conception is founded, but I protest that to the best of my knowledge and belief I am as reputable, as honest and as clean a man as you are. But you are haunted. Haunted? Then a shiver went all over him. The muscles of his mouth twitched and in an instant he was livid. He staggered against the table. Yes, God knows it is true. I am haunted. So either you are mad and therefore unfit to marry or else you have done something which places you outside the tolerably generous boundaries of civilized society and are therefore still more unfit to marry. You are on the horns of a dilemma. I am the victim of a delusion. What is the nature of this delusion? Does it take the shape of a beetle? Atherton Without the slightest warning he collapsed, was transformed. I can describe the change which took place in him in no other way. He sank in a heap on the floor. He held up his hands above his head and he gibbered like some frenzied animal. A more uncomfortable spectacle that he presented it would be difficult to find. I have seen it matched in the padded rooms of lunatic asylums but nowhere else. The sight of him set every nerve of my body on edge. In Heaven's name, what does the matter with you man? Are you stark staring mad? Here, drink this. Filling a tumbler with brandy I forced him between his quivering fingers. Then it was some moments before I could get him to understand what it was I wanted him to do. When he did get the glass to his lips he swallowed its contents as if they were so much water. By degrees his senses returned to him. He stood up. He looked about him with a smile which was positively ghastly. It's a delusion. It's a very queer kind of a delusion if it is. I eyed him curiously. He was evidently making the most strenuous effort to regain his self-control for a while with that horrible smile about his lips. Atherton, you take me at an advantage. I was still. Who's your oriental friend? My oriental friend? You mean yours. I supposed at first that the individual in question was a man but it appears that she's a woman. A woman? Oh, how do you mean? Well the face is a man's only disagreeable type of which the powers forbid that there are many and the voice is a man's also of a kind but the body as last night I chance to discover is a woman's. That sounds very odd. He closed his eyes. I could see that his cheeks were clammy. Do you do you believe in witchcraft? That depends. Have you heard of Obi? I have. I have been told that an Obey-a-man can put a spell upon a person which compels a person to see whatever he the Obey-a-man may please. Do you think that's possible? It is not a question to which I would be disposed to answer either yes or no. He looked at me out of his half closed eyes. It struck me that he was making conversation saying anything for the sake of gaining time. I remember reading a book entitled Obscure Diseases of the Brain. It contains some interesting data on the subject of hallucinations. Possibly. Now, candidly, would you recommend me to place my cells in the hand of a mental pathologist? I don't think that you're insane if that's what you mean. No. That is good hearing. Of all diseases, insanity is the most to be dreaded. Well, Atherton, I'm keeping you. What is that insane or not? I am very far from well. I think I must give myself a holiday. He moved towards his hat and umbrella. There is something else which you must do. What is that? You must resign your pretensions to Miss Lyndon's hand. My dear Atherton, if my health is really failing me, I shall resign everything. Everything. He repeated his own word to Miss Lyndon's hand which was pathetic. Understand me, Lessingham. What else you do is no affair of mine. I am concerned only with Miss Lyndon. You must give me your definite promise before you leave this room to terminate your engagement with her before tonight. His back was towards me. There will come a time when your conscience will prick you because of your treatment of me. When you will realize that I am the most unfortunate of men. I realize that now. It is because I realize that I am so desirous that the shadow of your evil fortune shall not fall upon an innocent girl. He turned. Atherton, what is your actual position with reference to Marjorie Lyndon? She regards me as a brother. And do you regard her as a sister? Are your sentiments towards her purely fraternal? You know that I love her. And do you suppose that my removal will clear the path for you? I suppose nothing of the kind. You may believe me or not, but my one desire is for her happiness and surely if you love her that is your desire too. That is so. He paused. An expression of sadness stole over his face of which I had not thought it capable. That is so to an extent of which you do not dream. No man likes to have his hand forced, especially by one whom he regards may I say it as a possible rival. But I will tell you this much if the blight which has fallen on my life is likely to continue I would not wish God forbid that I should wish to join her fate with mine not for all that the world could offer me. He stopped and I was still. Presently he continued. When I was younger I was subject to a similar delusion but it vanished. I saw no trace of it for years I thought that I had done with it for good. Recently however it has returned as you have witnessed. I shall institute inquiries into the cause of its reappearance if it seems likely to be irremovable or even if it bids fair to be prolonged I shall not only as you phrase it withdraw my pretensions to Miss Linden's hand but to all my other ambitions. In the interim as regards Miss Linden I shall be careful to hold myself on the footing of a mere acquaintance. You promise me? I do. And on your side Atherton in the meantime deal with me more gently. Judgment in my case has still to be given. You will find that I am not the guilty wretch you apparently imagine and there are few things more disagreeable to one self esteem than to learn too late that one has persisted in judging especially. Think of all that the world has at this moment to offer me and what it will mean if I have to turn my back on it owing to a mischievous twist of Fortune's wheel. He turned as if to go then stopped and looked around in an attitude of listening. What's that? There was a sound of droning I recall what Marjorie had said of her experiences of the night before it was like the droning of a beetle who also heard it the fashion of his countenance began to change it was pitiable to witness I rushed to him Lessingham, don't be a fool play the man he gripped my left arm with his right hand till it felt as if it were being compressed in a vice then I shall have to have some more brandy. Fortunately the bottle was within reach from where I stood otherwise I doubt if he would have released my arm to let me get at it I gave him the decanthra in the glass he helped himself to a copious libation by the time he had swallowed it the droning sound had gone he put down the empty tumbler when a man has to resort to alcohol to keep his nerves up to a concert pitch things are in a bad way with him you may be sure of that but then you have never known what it is to stand in momentary expectation of a tate-a-tate with the devil again he turned to leave the room and this time he actually went I let him go alone I heard his footsteps passing along the passage and the hall door close then I sat in an armchair stretched my legs out in front of me thrust my hands in my trouser pockets and I wondered I had been there perhaps four or five minutes when there was a slight noise at my side glancing round I saw a sheet of paper come fluttering through the open window it fell almost at my feet I picked it up it was a picture of a beetle a facsimile of the one which had had such an extraordinary effect on Mr. Lessingham the day before if this was intended for St. Paul it's a trifle late unless I could hear that someone was approaching along the corridor I looked up expecting to see the apostle reappear in which expectation I was agreeably disappointed the newcomer was feminine it was Miss Grayley as she stood in the open doorway I saw that her cheeks were red as roses I hope I am not interrupting you again but I left my purse here she stopped then added as if it were an afterthought and I want you to come and lunch with me I locked the picture of the beetle in the drawer and I lunched with Dora Grayley Chapter 23 of the Beetle this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Beetle by Richard Marsh Book 3 The Terror by Night and the Terror by Day Miss Marjorie Linden tells the tale Chapter 23 the way he told her I am the happiest woman in the world I wonder how many women have said that of themselves in their time but I am Paul has told me that he loves me how long I have made inward confession of my love for him I should be ashamed to say it sounds prosaic but I believe it is a fact that the first stirring of my pulses was caused by the report of a speech of his which I read in the Times it was on the eight hours bill Papa was most unflattering he said that he was an oily spouter an ignorant agitator an irresponsible firebrand and a good deal more to the same effect I remember very well how Papa fidgeted with the paper declaring that it read even worse than it had sounded and goodness knew that it had sounded bad enough he was so very emphatic that when he had gone I thought I would see what all the bother was about and read the speech for myself so I read it it affected me quite differently the speaker's words showed such knowledge charity and sympathy that they went straight to my heart after that I read everything of Paul Lessingham's which I came across and the more I read the more I was impressed but it was some time before we met considering what Papa's opinions were it was not likely that he would go out of his way to facilitate a meeting to him the mere mention of the name was like a red rag to a ball but at last we did meet and then I knew that he was stronger, greater, better even than his words it is so often the other way one finds that men and women too are so apt to put their best, as it were into their shop windows that the discovery was as novel as it was delightful when the ice was once broken we often met I do not know how it was we did not plan our meetings at first at any rate yet we seemed always meeting seldom a day passed on which we did not meet sometimes twice or thrice it was odd how we were always coming across each other in the most unlikely places I believe we did not notice it at the time but looking back I can see that we must have managed our engagements so that somewhere, somehow we should be certain to have an opportunity of exchanging half a dozen words those constant encounters could not have all been chance ones but I never supposed he loved me, never I am not even sure that for some time I was aware that I loved him we were great on friendship both of us I was quite aware that I was his friend that he regarded me as his friend he told me so more than once I tell you this he would say referring to this, that or the other because I know that in speaking to you I am speaking to a friend with him those were not empty words all kinds of people talk to one like that especially men it is a kind of formula which they use with every woman who shows herself disposed to listen but Paul is not like that he is cherry of speech not by any means a woman's man I tell him that is his weakest point if legend does not lie more even than is common few politicians have achieved prosperity without the aid of women he replies that he is not a politician that he never means to be a politician he simply wishes to work for his country if his country does not need his services well let it be Papa's political friends have always so many axes of their own to grind that at first to hear a member of parliament talk like that was almost disquieting I had dreamed of men like that but I never encountered one till I met Paul Lessingham our friendship was a pleasant one it became pleasanter and pleasanter until there came a time when he told me everything the dreams he dreamed the plans which he had planned the great purposes which if health and strength were given him he intended to carry to a great fulfilment and at last he told me something else it was after a meeting at a working women's club in Westminster he had spoken and I had spoken too I don't know what Papa would have said if he had known but I had a formal resolution had been proposed I had seconded it in perhaps a couple of hundred words but that would have been quite enough for Papa to have regarded me as an abandoned wretch Papa always puts those sort of words into capitals Papa regards a speachifying woman as a thing of horror I have known him look as scant at a primrose dame the night was fine Paul proposed that I should walk with him down the Westminster Bridge Road until we reached the house and then he would see me into a cab I did as he suggested it was still early, not yet ten and the streets were alive with people our conversation as we went was entirely political the Agricultural Amendment Act was then before the Commons and Paul felt very strongly that it was one of those measures which give with one hand taking with the other the committee stage was at hand and already several amendments were threatened the effect of which would be to strengthen the landlord at the expense of the tenant more than one of these and they not the most moderate were to be proposed by Papa Paul was pointing out how it would be his duty to oppose these tooths and nail then all at once he stopped I sometimes wonder how you really feel upon this matter what matter? on the difference of opinion in political matters which exists between your father and myself I am conscious that Mr. Linden regards my action as a personal question and resents it so keenly that I am sometimes moved to wonder if at least a portion of his resentment is not shared by you I have explained I consider Papa the politician as one person and Papa the father is quite another you are his daughter certainly I am but would you on that account wish me to share his political opinions even though I believe them to be wrong you love him of course I do he is the best of fathers your defection will be a grievous disappointment I looked at him out of the corner of my eye I wondered what was passing through his mind the subject of my relations with Papa was one which without saying anything at all about it we had consented to taboo I am not so sure I am permeated with the suspicion that Papa has no politics Miss Linden I fancy that I can adduce proof to the contrary I believe that if Papa were to marry again say a home ruler within three weeks his wife's politics would be his own Paul thought before he spoke then he smiled I suppose that men sometimes do change their coats to please their wives even their political ones Papa's opinions are the opinions of those with whom he mixes the reason why he consorts with Tories of the crusted school is because he fears that if he associated with anybody else with radicals say before he knew it he would be a radical too with him association is synonymous with logic Paul laughed outright by this time we had reached Westminster Bridge standing we looked down upon the river a long line of lanterns was gliding mysteriously over the waters it was a tug towing a string of barges for some moments neither spoke then Paul recurred to what I had just been saying and you do you think marriage would colour your convictions would it yours that depends he was silent then he said in that tone which I had learned to look for when he was most in earnest it depends on whether you would marry me I was still his words were so unexpected that they took my breath away I knew not what to make of them my head was in a whirl then he addressed to me a monosyllabic interrogation well I found my voice or a part of it well to what he came a little closer will you be my wife the part of my voice which I had found was lost again tears came into my eyes I shivered I had not thought that I could be so absurd just then the moon came from behind the cloud the rippling waters were tipped with silver he spoke again so gently that his words just reached my ears you know that I love you then I knew that I loved him too that what I had fancied was a feeling of friendship was something very different it was as if somebody in tearing a veil from before my eyes had revealed a spectacle which dazzled me I was speechless he misconstrued my silence have I offended you no I fancied that he noted the tremor which was in my voice and read it rightly for he too was still presently his hand stole along the parapet and fastened upon mine and held it tight and that was how it came about other things were said but they were hardly of the first importance though I believe we took some time in saying them of myself I can say with truth that my heart was too full for copious speech I was dumb with a great happiness and I believe I can say the same of Paul he told me as much when we were parting it seemed that we had only just come there when Paul started turning he stared up at Big Ben midnight the house up impossible but it was more than possible it was fact we had actually been on the bridge two hours and it had not seemed ten minutes never had I suppose that the flight of time could have been so entirely unnoticed Paul was considerably taken aback his legislative conscience pricked him he excused himself in his own fashion fortunately for once in a way my business in the house was not so important as my business out of it he had his arm through mine we were standing face to face so you call this business he laughed he not only saw me into a cab but he saw me home in it and in the cab he kissed me I fancy I was a little out of sorts that night my nervous system was perhaps demoralised because when he kissed me I did a thing which I never do I have my own standard of behaviour and that sort of thing is quite outside of it I behaved like a sentimental chit I cried and it took him all the way to my father's door to comfort me I can only hope that perceiving the singularity of the occasion he consented to excuse me End of Chapter 23 Recording by Ruth Golding Chapter 24 of The Beetle This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 24 A Woman's View Sydney Atherton has asked me to be his wife it is not only annoying worse it is absurd this is the result of Paul's wish that our engagement should not be announced he is afraid of papa not really but for the moment the atmosphere of the house is charged with electricity party feeling runs high they are at each other hammer and tongs about this Agricultural Amendment Act the strain on Paul is tremendous I am beginning to feel positively concerned little things which I have noticed about him lately convince me that he is being overwrought I suspect him of having sleepless nights the amount of work which he has been getting through lately has been too much for any single human being I care not who he is he himself admits that he shall be glad when the session is at an end so shall I in the meantime it is his desire that nothing shall be said about our engagement until the house rises it is reasonable enough papa is sure to be violent lately the barest illusion to Paul's name has been enough to make him explode when the discovery does come he will be unmanageable I foresee it clearly from little incidents which have happened recently I predict the worst he will be capable of making a scene within the precincts of the house and as Paul says there is some truth in the saying that the last straw breaks the camel's back he will be better able to face papa's wild wrath when the house has risen so the news is to buy Dewey of course Paul is right and what he wishes I wish too still it is not all such plain sailing for me as he perhaps thinks the domestic atmosphere is almost as electrical as that in the house papa is like the terrier who scents a rat he is always sniffing the air he has not actually forbidden me to speak to Paul his courage is not quite at the sticking point but he is constantly making uncomfortable illusions to persons who number among their acquaintance political adventurers grasping carpet-baggers radical riff-raff and that kind of thing sometimes I venture to call my soul my own but such a tempest invariably follows that I become discreet again as soon as I possibly can so as a rule I suffer in silence still I would with all my heart that the concealment were at an end no one needed matching that I am ashamed of being about to marry Paul papa least of all on the contrary I am as proud of it as a woman can be sometimes when he has said or done something unusually wonderful I fear that my pride will out I do feel it so strong within me I should be delighted to have a trial of strength with papa anywhere at any time I should not be so rude to him as he would be to me at the bottom of his heart papa knows that I am the more sensible of the two after a pitched battle or so he would understand it better still I know papa I have not been his daughter for all these years in vain I feel like hot-blooded soldiers must feel who burning to attack the enemy in the open field are ordered to skulk behind hedges and be shot at one result is that Sydney has actually made a proposal of marriage he of all people it is too comical the best of it was that he took himself quite seriously I do not know how many times he has confided to me the sufferings which he has endured for love of other women some of them I am sorry to say decent married women too but this is the first occasion on which the theme has been a personal one he was so frantic as his want to be that to calm him I told him about Paul which under the circumstances to him I felt myself at liberty to do in return he was melodramatic hinting darkly at I know not what I was almost cross with him he is a curious person Sydney Atherton I suppose it is because I have known him all my life and have always looked upon him in cases of necessity as a capital substitute for a brother that I criticise him with so much frankness in some respects he is a genius in others I will not write fool for that he never is though he has often done some extremely foolish things the fame of his inventions is in the mouths of all men though the half of them has never been told he is the most extraordinary mixture the things which most people would like to have proclaimed in the street he keeps tightly locked in his own bosom while those which the same persons would be only too glad to conceal he shouts from the roofs a very famous man once told me that if Mr Atherton chose to become a specialist to take up one branch of inquiry and devote his life to it his fame before he died would bridge the spheres but sticking to one thing is not in Sydney's line at all he prefers like the bee to roam from flower to flower as for his being in love with me it is ridiculous he is as much in love with the moon I cannot think what has put the idea into his head some girl must have been ill-using him or he imagines that she has the girl whom he ought to marry and whom he ultimately will marry is Dora Grayling she is young, charming, immensely rich and overhead and ears in love with him if she were not then he would be overhead and ears in love with her I believe he is very near it as it is sometimes he is so very rude to her it is a characteristic of Sydney's that he is apt to be rude to a girl whom he really likes as for Dora I suspect she dreams of him he is tall, straight, very handsome with a big moustache and the most extraordinary eyes I fancy that those eyes of his have as much to do with Dora's state as anything I have heard it said that he possesses the hypnotic power to an unusual degree and that if he chose to exercise it he might become a danger to society I believe he has hypnotised Dora he makes an excellent brother I have gone to him many and many a time for help and some excellent advice I have received I dare say I shall consult him still there are matters of which one would hardly dare to talk to Paul in all things he is the great man he could hardly condescend to chiffons now Sydney can and does when he is in the mood on the vital subject of trimmings a woman could not appeal to a sounder authority I tell him if he had been a dressmaker he would have been magnificent I am sure he would End of Chapter 24 Recording by Rose Golding Chapter 25 of The Beetle This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 25 The Man in the Street This morning I had an adventure I was in the breakfast room Papa, as usual, was late for breakfast and I was wondering whether I should begin without him when, chanting to look round something caught my eye in the street I went to the window to see what it was a small crowd of people was in the middle of the road and they were all staring at something which apparently was lying on the ground what it was I could not see The Butler happened to be in the room I spoke to him Peter, what is the matter in the street? Go and see He went and saw and presently he returned Peter is an excellent servant but the fashion of his speech even when conveying the most trivial information is slightly sesquipedalian he would have made a capital cabinet minister at question time he wraps up the smallest petitions of meaning in the largest possible words An unfortunate individual appears to have been the victim of a catastrophe I am informed that he is dead the constable asserts that he is drunk Drunk? Dead? Do you mean that he is dead drunk at this hour? He is either one or the other I did not behold the individual myself I derived my information from a bystander That was not sufficiently explicit for me I gave way to a seemingly quite causeless impulse of curiosity I went out into the street just as I was to see for myself It was perhaps not the most sensible thing I could have done and papa would have been shocked but I am always shocking papa It had been raining in the night and the shoes which I had on were not so well suited as they might have been for an encounter with the mugs I made my way to the point of interest What's the matter? I asked A workman with a bag of tools over his shoulder answered me There's something wrong with someone Policeman says he's drunk but he looks to me as if he was something worse Will you let me pass please? When they saw I was a woman they permitted me to reach the centre of the crowd A man was lying on his back in the grease and dirt of the road He was so plastered with mud that it was difficult at first to be sure that he really was a man His head and feet were bare His body was partially covered by a long ragged cloak It was obvious that that one wretched dirt-stained sopping wet rag was all the clothing he had on A huge constable was holding his shoulders in his hands and was regarding him as if he could not make him out at all He seemed uncertain as to whether it was or was not a case of shamming He spoke to him as if he had been some refractory child Come my lad, this won't do Wake up! What's the matter? But he neither woke up nor explained what was the matter I took hold of his hand It was icy cold Apparently the wrist was pulseless Clearly this was no ordinary case of drunkenness There is something seriously wrong officer Medical assistants ought to be heard at once Do you think he's in a fit, Miss? That a doctor should be able to tell you better than I can There seems to be no pulse I should not be surprised to find that he was The word dead was actually on my lips when the stranger saved me from making a glaring exposure of my ignorance by snatching his wrist away from me and sitting up in the mud He held out his hands in front of him opened his eyes and exclaimed in a loud but painfully raucous tone of voice as if he was suffering from a very bad cold Paul Lessingham! I was so surprised that I all but sat down in the mud To hear Paul, my Paul, apostrophised by an individual of his appearance in that fashion was something which I had not expected Directly the words were uttered He closed his eyes again sank backward and seemingly relaxed into unconsciousness The constable gripping him by the shoulder just in time to prevent him banging the back of his head against the road The officer shook him scarcely gently Now, my lad, it's plain that you're not dead What's the meaning of this? Move yourself! Looking round I found that Peter was close behind Apparently he had been struck by the singularity of his mistress' behaviour and had followed to see that it did not meet with the reward which it deserved I spoke to him Peter, let someone go at once for Dr. Coates Dr. Coates lives just round the corner and since it was evident that the man's laps into consciousness had made the policeman skeptical as to his case being so serious as it seemed I thought it might be advisable that a competent opinion should be obtained without delay Peter was starting when again the stranger returned to consciousness that is, if it really was consciousness as to which I was more than a little in doubt He repeated his previous pantomime sat up in the mud, stretched out his arms opened his eyes unnaturally wide and yet they appeared unseeing A sort of convulsion went all over him and he shrieked It really amounted to shrieking as a man might shriek who was in mortal terror Be warned, Paul Lessingham Be warned! For my part that settled it there was a mystery here which needed to be unravelled twice had he called upon Paul's name and in the strangest fashion It was for me to learn the why and the wherefor to ascertain what connection there was between this lifeless creature and Paul Lessingham Providence might have cast him there before my door I might be entertaining an angel unawares My mind was made up on the instant Peter hastened for Dr. Coates Peter passed the word and immediately a footman started running as fast as his legs would carry him Officer, I will have this man taken into my father's house Will some of you men help to carry him? There were volunteers enough and to spare I spoke to Peter in the hall Is Papa down yet? Mr. Linden has sent down to say that you will please not wait for him for breakfast He has issued instructions to have his breakfast conveyed to him upstairs That's all right I nodded towards the poor wretch who was being carried through the hall You will say nothing to him about this unless he particularly asks You understand? Peter bowed, he is discretion itself He knows I have my vagaries and it is not his fault if the saver of them travels to Papa The doctor was in the house almost as soon as the stranger Once washing? He remarked directly he saw him And that certainly was true I never saw a man who stood more obviously in need of the good offices of soap and water Then he went through the usual medical formula I watching all the while So far as I could see the man showed not the slightest sign of life Is he dead? He will be soon if he doesn't have something to eat The fellow's starving The doctor asked the policeman what he knew of him That sagacious officer's reply was vague A boy had run up to him crying that a man was lying dead in the street He had straightaway followed the boy and discovered the stranger That was all he knew What is the matter with the man? I inquired of the doctor when the constable had gone Don't know It may be catalepsy and it mayn't When I do know you may ask again Dr. Coates' manner was a trifle brusque particularly, I believe, to me I remember that once he threatened to box my ears When I was a small child I used to think nothing of boxing his Realising that no satisfaction was to be got out of a speechless man particularly as regards his mysterious references to poor I went upstairs I found that Papa was under the impression that he was suffering from a severe attack of gout But as he was eating a capital breakfast and apparently enjoying it while I was still fasting I ventured to hope that the matter was not so serious as he feared I mentioned nothing to him about the person whom I had found in the street lest it should aggravate his gout When he is like that, the slightest thing does End of Chapter 25 Recording by Ruth Golden Chapter 26 of The Beatles This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Beatles by Richard Marsh Chapter 26 Paul has stormed the House of Commons with one of the greatest speeches which even he has delivered and I have quarrelled with Papa and also I have very nearly quarrelled with Sydney Sydney's little affair is nothing he actually still persists in thinking himself in love with me as if since last night when he, what he calls, proposed to me he has not time to fall out of love and in again half a dozen times and on the strength of it he seems to consider himself entitled to make himself as disagreeable as he can That I should not mind for Sydney disagreeable is about as nice as Sydney any other way but when it comes to his shooting poison shafts at Paul I object if he imagines that anything he can say or hint will lessen my estimation of Paul Lessingham by one hair's breadth he has less wisdom even than I gave him credit for by the way Percy Woodville asked me to be his wife tonight which also is nothing he has been trying to do it for the last three years though under the circumstances it is a little trying he would not spit venom merely because I preferred another man and he I believe does care for me Papa's affair is serious it is the first clashing of the foils and this time I imagine the buttons are really off this morning he said a few words not so much to as at me he informed me that Paul was expected to speak tonight as if I did not know it and availed himself of the opening to load him with the abuse which in his case he thinks is not unbecoming to a gentleman I don't know or rather I do know what he would think if he heard another man use in the presence of a woman the kind of language which he habitually employs however I said nothing I had a motive for allowing the chaff to fly before the wind but tonight issue was joined I of course went to hear Paul speak as I have done over and over again before afterwards Paul came and fetched me from the cage he had to leave me for a moment while he gave somebody a message and in the lobby there was Sydney all sneers I could have pinched him just as I was coming to the conclusion that I should have to stick a pin into his arm Paul returned and positively Sydney was rude to him I was ashamed if Mr. Atherton was not as if it was not enough that he should be insulted by a mere popinjay at the very moment when he had been adding another stone to the fabric of his country's glory he came up he actually wanted to take me away from Paul I should have liked to see him do it of course I went down with Paul to the carriage leaving Papa to follow if he chose he did not choose but nonetheless he managed to be home within three minutes after I had myself returned then the battle began it was impossible for me to give an idea of Papa in a rage there may be men who look well when they lose their temper but if there are Papa is certainly not one he is always talking about the magnificence and the high breeding of the lindons but anything less high-bred than the head of the lindons in his moments of wrath it would be hard to conceive his language I will not attempt to portray but his observations consisted mainly of abuse of Paul glorification of the lindons and orders to me I forbid you, I forbid you when Papa wishes to be impressive he repeats his own words three or four times over I don't know if he imagines that they're improved by repetition if he does he is wrong I forbid you ever again to speak to that, that, that here followed language I was silent my cue was to keep cool I believe that with the exception perhaps of being a little white and exceedingly sorry that Papa should so forget himself I was about the same as I generally am do you hear me? do you hear what I say? do you hear me miss? yes Papa I hear you then promise me promise that you will do as I tell you mark my words my girl you shall promise before you leave this room my dear Papa do you intend me to spend the remainder of my life in the drawing room don't you be impertinent don't, don't, don't you speak to me like that I, I, I won't have it I tell you what it is Papa if you don't take care you'll have another attack of gout damn gout that was the most sensible thing he said if such a tormentor as gout can be consigned to the nether regions by the mere utterance of a word by all means let the word be uttered off he went again the man's a ruffianly rascally and so on there's not such a villainous vagabond and all the rest of it and I order you I'm a linden and I order you I'm your father and I order you I order you never to speak to such a such a various fame repetitions again and and and I order you never to look at him listen to me Papa I will promise you never to speak to Paul Lessingham again if you will promise me never to speak to Lord Cantilever again or to recognize him if you meet him in the street you should have seen how Papa glared Lord Cantilever is the head of his party it's Auguste and I presume reverenced leader he is Papa's particular fetish I'm not sure that he does regard him as being any lower than the angels but if he does it is certainly something in decimals my suggestion seemed as outrageous to him as his suggestion seemed to me but it is Papa's misfortune that he can only see one side of a question and that's his own you dare to compare Lord Cantilever to that that I'm not comparing them I am not aware of there being anything in particular against Lord Cantilever that is against his character but of course I should not dream of comparing a man of his caliber with one of real ability like Paul Lessingham it would be to treat his lordship with too much severity I could not help it but that did it the rest of Papa's conversation was a jumble of explosions it was all so sad Papa poured all the vials of his wrath upon Paul to his own sword is figment he threatened me with all the pains and penalties of the Inquisition if I did not immediately promise to hold no further communication with Mr. Lessingham of course I did nothing of the kind he cursed me in default by bell, book and candle and by ever so many other things beside he called me the most dreadful names me, his only child he warned me that I should find myself in prison before I had done I am not sure that he did not hint darkly at the gallows finally he drove me from the room in a whirlwind of anathemas End of Chapter 26 Recording by Ruth Golding Chapter 27 of the Beetle this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 27 The Terror by Night When I left Papa or rather when Papa had driven me from him I went straight to the man whom I had found in the street it was late and I was feeling both tired and worried so that I only thought of seeing for myself how he was in some way he seemed to be a link between Paul and myself and as at that moment links of that kind were precious I could not have gone to bed without learning something of his condition the nurse received me at the door well nurse, how's the patient? nurse was a plump motherly woman who had attended more than one odd protégé of mine and whom I kept pretty constantly at my beck and call she held out her hands it's hard to tell he hasn't moved since I came not moved, is he still insensible? he seems to me to be in some sort of trance he does not appear to breathe and I can detect no pulsation but the doctor says he's still alive it's the queerest case I ever saw I went farther into the room directly I did so the man in the bed gave signs of life which were sufficiently unmistakable nurse hastened to him why? she exclaimed he's moving he might have heard you enter he not only might have done but it seemed possible that that was what he actually had done as I approached the bed he raised himself to a sitting posture as in the morning he had done in the street and he exclaimed as if he addressed himself to someone whom he saw in front of him I cannot describe the almost more than human agony which was in his voice Paul Lessingham, beware the beetle what he meant I had not the slightest notion probably that was why what seemed more like a pronouncement of delirium than anything else had such an extraordinary effect upon my nerves no sooner had he spoken than a sort of blank horror seemed to settle down upon my mind I actually found myself trembling at the knees I felt all at once as if I was standing in the immediate presence of something awful yet unseen as for the speaker no sooner were the words out of his lips than as was the case in the morning he relapsed into a condition of trance nurse bending over him announced the fact he's gone off again what an extraordinary thing I suppose it is real it was clear from the tone of her voice that she shared the doubt which had troubled the policeman there is not a trace of a pulse from the look of things he might be dead of one thing I'm sure that there's something unnatural about the man no natural illness I ever heard of takes hold of a man like this glancing up she saw that there was something unusual in my face an appearance which startled her why miss Marjorie what's the matter you look quite ill I felt ill and worse than ill but at the same time I was quite incapable of describing what I felt to nurse for some inscrutable reason I had even lost the control of my tongue I stammered I'm not feeling very well nurse I think I'll be better in bed as I spoke I staggered towards the door conscious all the while that nurse was staring at me with eyes wide open when I got out of the room it seemed in some incomprehensible fashion as if something had left it with me and that it and I were alone together in the corridor so overcome was I by the consciousness of its immediate propinquity that all at once I found myself cowering against the wall as if I expected something or someone to strike me how I reached my bedroom I do not know I found Fonschette awaiting me for the moment her presence was a positive comfort until I realized the amazement with which she was regarding me Mamsel is not well thank you Fonschette I am rather tired I will undress myself tonight you can go to bed but if Mamsel is so tired will she not permit me to assist her the suggestion was reasonable enough and kindly too for to say the least of it she had as much cause for fatigue as I had I hesitated I should have liked to throw my arms about her neck and beg her not to leave me but the plain truth is I was ashamed in my inner consciousness I was persuaded that the sense of terror which had suddenly come over me was so absolutely causeless that I could not bear the notion of playing the craven in my maid's eyes while I hesitated something seemed to sweep past me through the air and to brush against my cheek in passing I caught at Fonschette's arm Fonschette is there something with us in the room Mamsel? What does Mamsel mean? she looked disturbed which was on the whole excusable Fonschette is not exactly a strong minded person and not likely to be much of a support when a support was most required if I was going to play the fool I would be my own audience so I sent her off did you not hear me tell you that I will undress myself? you're to go to bed she went to bed with quite sufficient willingness the instant that she was out of the room I wished that she was back again such a paroxysm of fear came over me that I was incapable of stirring from the spot on which I stood and it was all I could do to prevent myself from collapsing in heap on the floor I had never till then had reason to suppose that I was a coward nor to suspect myself of being the possessor of nerves I was as little likely as anyone to be frightened by shadows I told myself that the whole thing was sheer absurdity and that I should be thoroughly ashamed of my own conduct when the morning came if you don't want to be self-branded as a contemptible idiot, Marjorie Linden you will call up your courage and these foolish fears will fly but it would not do instead of flying they grew worse I became convinced and the process of conviction was terrible beyond words that there actually was something with me in the room some invisible horror which at any moment might become visible I seemed to understand with a sense of agony which nothing can describe that this thing which was with me was with Paul that we were linked together by the bond of a common and a dreadful terror that at that moment that same awful peril which was threatening me was threatening him and that I was powerless to move a finger in his aid as with a sort of second sight I saw out of the room in which I was into another in which Paul was crouching on the floor covering his face with his hands and shrieking the vision came again and again with a degree of vividness of which I cannot give the least conception at last the horror and the reality of it goaded me to frenzy Paul, Paul! I screamed as soon as I found my voice the vision faded once more I understood that as a matter of simple fact I was standing in my own bedroom that the lights were burning brightly that I had not yet commenced to remove a particle of dress Am I going mad? I wondered I had heard of insanity taking extraordinary forms but what could have caused softening of the brain in me I had not the faintest notion surely that sort of thing does not come on one in such a wholly unmitigated form without the slightest notice and that my mental faculties were sound enough a few minutes back I was certain the first premonition of anything of the kind had come upon me with the melodramatic utterance of the man I had found in the street Paul Lessingham, beware the beetle! the words were ringing in my ears what was that? there was a buzzing sound behind me I turned to see what it was it moved as I moved so that it was still at my back I swung swiftly right round on my heels it still eluded me it was still behind I stood and listened what was it that hovered so persistently at my back the buzzing was distinctly audible it was like the humming of a bee or could it be a beetle? my whole life long I have had an antipathy to beetles of any sort or kind I have objected neither to rats nor mice nor cows nor bulls nor snakes nor spiders nor toads nor lizards nor any of the thousand and one other creatures animate or otherwise to which so many people have a rooted and apparently illogical dislike my pet and only horror has been beetles the mere suspicion of a harmless and I am told necessary cockroach being within several feet has always made me seriously uneasy the thought that a great winged beetle to me a flying beetle is the horror of horrors was with me in my bedroom goodness alone knew how it had got there was unendurable anyone who had beheld me during the next few moments would certainly have supposed I was deranged I turned and twisted sprang from side to side screwed myself into impossible positions in order to obtain a glimpse of the detested visitant but in vain I could hear it all the time but see it never the buzzing sound was continually behind the terror returned I began to think that my brain must be softening I dashed to the bed flinging myself on my knees I tried to pray but I was speechless words would not come my thoughts would not take shape I all at once became conscious as I struggled to ask help of God that I was wrestling with something evil that if I only could ask help of him evil would flee but I could not I was helpless over mastered I hid my face in the bed clothes cramming my fingers into my ears but the buzzing was behind me all the time I sprang up striking out blindly wildly right and left hitting nothing the buzzing always came from a point at which at the moment I was not aiming I tore off my clothes I had on a lovely frock which I had worn for the first time that night I had had it specially made for the occasion of the Duchess's ball and more especially in honour of Paul's great speech I had said to myself when I saw my image in a mirror that it was the most exquisite gown I had ever had that it suited me to perfection and that it should continue in my wardrobe for many a day if only as a souvenir of a memorable night now in the madness of my terror all reflections of that sort were forgotten my only desire was to away with it I tore it off anyhow letting it fall in rags on the floor at my feet all else that I had on I flung in the same way after it it was a veritable holocaust of dainty garments I acting as relentless executioner who am as a rule so tender with my things I leapt upon the bed switched off the electric light hurried into bed burying myself overhead and all deep down between the sheets I had hoped that by shutting out the light I might regain my senses that in the darkness I might have opportunity for same reflection but I had made a grievous error I had exchanged bad for worse the darkness lent added terrors the light had not been out five seconds before I would have given all that I was worth to be able to switch it on again as I cowered beneath the bed clothes I heard the buzzing sound above my head the sudden silence of the darkness had rendered it more audible than it had been before the thing whatever it was was hovering above the bed it came nearer and nearer it grew clearer and clearer I felt it alight upon the coverlet shall I ever forget the sensations with which I did feel it it weighed upon me like a ton of lead how much of the seeming weight was real and how much imaginary I cannot pretend to say but that it was much heavier than any beetle I have ever seen or heard of I am sure for a time it was still and during that time I doubt if I even drew my breath then I felt it begin to move in wobbling fashion with awkward ungainly gait stopping every now and then as if for rest I was conscious that it was progressing slowly yet surely towards the head of the bed the emotion of horror with which I realised what this progression might mean will be I fear with me to the end of my life not only in dreams but too often also in my waking hours my heart as the psalmist has it melted like wax within me I was incapable of movement dominated by something as hideous as and infinitely more powerful than the fascination of the serpent when it reached the head of the bed what I feared with water fear would happen did happen it began to find its way inside to creep between the sheets the wonder is I did not die felt it coming nearer and nearer inch by inch I knew that it was upon me that escape there was none I felt something touch my hair and then oblivion did come to my aid for the first time in my life I swooned End of Chapter 27 Recording by Ruth Golding