 section 17 of here and hereafter. 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 Cornel Nemes, Reno, Nevada. Here and hereafter, by Barry Payne, The Magic Greens. Part one, Netta, the make believer. Netta's father one day picked her up, swung her into the air, and put her down on the top of the high Italian cabinet in the hall. There you little slut, he said. What does the world look like from up there? Quite different. You wouldn't know it. The pictures look so queer upside down and the staircase isn't the same or anything. Can't you come up too? No, I'm afraid. Did you know there were two? No, three big rings up here on the top of the cabinet. You can see them from down below. May I bring them down? If you like. There were three disused wooden curtain rings, very dusty. How did they get there? Asked Netta. That, said her father, is one of the things that I do not know. Asked somebody else. So she asked her mother, her governess, her nurse, and all the servants. They also did not know. They supposed that somebody must have put them there some time. Netta went back to her father and obtained permission to have those rings for her own. She carried them into the garden into a secluded place under a weeping ash. There she examined the rings very carefully and thought about the mystery which surrounded them. When she took them upstairs, she showed them to her nurse. These are the magic rings, she said. Are they indeed now? Said the nurse used to being interested fictitiously, but at the shortest notice in anything childish. On the next day, Netta fell the need of a temple. The romance of the rings was growing rapidly. Invested with the mysterious origin and properties not yet fully defined, but vaguely magical, they required to be enshrined in a temple. For one night they had put up with the shelter of the toy cardboard, but in view of their character, they were now to have a place apart. Netta went to her father and asked him if he had an empty box that he could spare. Would the cardboard box do? Yes, it ought to be pure white though. The pure white cardboard box was found and given to her. This became the temple. Netta placed them three magic rings in it and called her brother, who was a year older than she, and at that time, rather a pious little prig. Would you like to see what's in that box, Jimmy? I don't much mind. It's a temple, and I don't think I shall let you. I certainly shan't let everybody. You ought to let me see, because I'm your brother. Well, first of all, I must write your name inside the lead. Everyone who is allowed to see into the temple is going to be written down there. You're not to look until I've done it. She wrote the names as neatly as she could with the long new pencil beautifully pointed. Now you can look, she said. It isn't anything at all. It's only three old rings. Yes, but they're magic rings. Puh, they can't do anything. Can they, said Netta, with immense indifference as she replaced the lead. She sat on the table, swinging her slim legs and hummed provokingly. I know they can't do anything, Jimmy repeated. Netta looked away from him, up at the flies circling on the white ceiling. Her eyes grew big and meditative. She continued humming. Well, said Jimmy desperately, what can they do? Every night when you're in bed and asleep and when everybody else is in bed and asleep, they can come out of the temple and run about. They run up walls and along the roofs of houses and they can fly too. They fly just like, like flies. I don't believe it. You're being a liar and you know where liars go too. You ought to be punished. I'm not being a liar. I might be a make believer perhaps, but I shan't say if I'm nobody knows where those rings came from. Papa himself doesn't know. I shall go and ask him this minute myself. Jimmy walked firmly to the door, paused and added, and lying is the same as make-believing. He found his father and asked him if he knew where those rings that Netta had came from. No, said his father. I told her I didn't. Jimmy was disappointed. Lying and make-believing are the same thing, aren't they? He said, not at all the same thing. This was yet another disappointment. Later in the day, Jimmy went to Netta and said that she really ought to give him one of those rings, as he was her brother. She refused. He then asked if he might look inside the temple at them again. Once more, he was refused. It is not a good thing, said Netta gravely, to look at them too much in one day. It seems as if I couldn't do anything or have anything or play at anything, said Jimmy gloomily. Netta being tender-hearted, relented, and allowed him to look once more. Netta had girlfriends of her own age. They were Dorothy and Cecilia Vane and Rose Heritage. Netta told them about the magic rings, and they were all deeply impressed. A ritual sprang up. Netta was the priestess, and Rose Heritage was the under-priestess. It became necessary always to wave a green leaf slowly over the temple before opening it. Every morning the magic rings were taken up and placed for a few minutes in a basin of pure water. Then they were dried and put back again in the temple. Dorothy Vane, who read deeply, suggested amulets, and they were made at once. Each girl wore around her neck a gold thread. It had come off a box of crackers, and to the thread was attached a small square of white cardboard, on which three circles had been drawn. Netta and Rose had amulets on which the circles were drawn in red chalk. Dorothy and Cecilia had to be content with black ink. But it was understood that after a certain time Dorothy would be raised to the position of under-priestess, and then she also would have the red chalk privilege. The amulets were to be worn under the dress and to be shown to no one. The secrecy observed was tremendous. Nobody was to know anything. When engaged with the magic rings, Christian names were forbidden. Netta was addressed as the priestess, and Rose as the under-priestess. Dorothy was called one, and Cecilia, two. Of course, two was the least honorable position. It had been assigned to Cecilia because, owing to her sweet and gentle disposition, she consented to take it, which none of the other three would have done. Jimmy was by unanimous vote left out of it altogether. They would ask him if he would not go and play in the garden like a kind boy because they had some private secrets to talk about. And if she came suddenly into the room where they were, they hid things hurriedly and talked ostentatiously about the weather. This maddened Jimmy. Sometimes he said that he knew all about it, and at other times pointed out to Netta that the claims of their relationship required that she should tell him all about it, and at other times that he did not want to know. Occasionally, he threatened to throw the temple and the magic rings. He called them all curtain rings, but that was only his offensiveness. Into the duck pond. He did not do it. The devotees were four in number, and he was only one. And full hardiness is not courage. Anyhow, he said, if you weren't doing wrong, you'd let me into it, and so you're certain to be punished. I have got secrets on my own, and mine are not wrong, but I shan't say anything about them, but he prevailed nothing. The legends about the magic rings grew rapidly in number and in strength. Their origin was now accounted for. They had been hoops' belongings to the fairies, and they had undergone trundling so willingly and beautifully that the fairies had set them free and given them magical powers. This etiological myth was like the rest, given out of big neta, the make-believer, and received with wonderment and satisfaction by her followers. The magic rings always lived a day on ahead. What is merely Monday to us was Tuesday to them. Reports of their nocturnal wanderings were received from time to time. They frequently went to the moon. They could fly like flies. It will be remembered once they went to the star of dolls. The star is inhabited by dolls only, and they can talk. A penny exercise book was procured, the generous and sweet tempered Cecilia, defraying the total expenses, and in it the myths were written out together with certain rules to be observed. It was called the volume of the magic rings, and under priestess had charge of it, just as the priestess had charge of the temple. Letters passed freely between the four girls. I give the one which was the beginning of the end. Dearest priestess, when you bring the temple with you to the tea on their Thursday, which is our Wednesday, mine to bring two handkerchiefs, and one of them must be clean. This is important. I have something to show you. I hope you tell Jimmy nothing. You're loving under priestess. The other girls had received similar instructions. Cecilia had been told to bring her musical box as well. They all met in Rosie's schoolroom, and at first she did not explain her instructions fully. I've got a splendid thing, she said. First of all, when I say go, you must all run after me at once. Bringing the things with you, and then when we get there, I'll tell you the rest. Rosie's governess was with them a tea, but afterwards she made ready to go out into the garden, suggesting that they should come too. May we wait a little, and then come, asked Rose. We want to play in the house first. Very well, said Miss Tag. Don't get into any mischief. The moment she had gone, Rose said, go. In a single file with Rose leading, they ran down a long passage and into the spare bedroom at the end of it. Now then, said Rose, first of all, we tie clean wide handkerchiefs on our hands. It was done. Now come and look. In the spare room, there was a very large toilet table. It was hung all round with pink chins, with thin white muslin over it. When you got under the table, the world was shut out by these curtains, and the light came through them in a holy pink subdued glow. It was a charming and secluded spot, and here Miss Rose had placed already two small color candles and a box of matches, and the lead of a box piled high with rose petals, and the green leaf essential to the opening of the temple. Ola agreed that it really was as splendid as she had said. A conference was held, and the ritual decided. The candles were lighted and placed one on each side of the temple. The green leaf was waved, the temple opened, and the magic rings taken out. At this point, the musical box was to begin to play. The priestess had assigned the turning of the musical box to two, because after all, it was her own musical box, and she had so few privileges. So two was radiant. The magic rings were to be covered over with the rose petals left there until the music ceased, and then replaced in the temple. Then everybody was to say, oh magic rings, three times, and the candles were to be extinguished. The program was never concluded, because in the middle of it, Rose's governess, Mistag, came and caught them. It was Mistag's opinion that they were very naughty, wicked, irreverent children, and that they ran a risk of burning the house down. The first accusation was untrue, but the latter had something in it. The four children wandered out into the garden, a dejected group. Cecilia was the only one who had actually cried, though, and they had all comforted her as well as they could. I do hate Mistag, said Rose. This is the end of the magic rings. Netta, the make believer, rose to the occasion with the new myth. The magic rings have been insulted. They do not like that. I don't like being insulted myself, and if it had been my governess, I should have answered back. Well, I know what the magic rings will do now. What, breathlessly from all? They will go away. Tonight, I shall put them in their temple in their usual place, but tomorrow, all of you come in the morning after the lesson and you'll see. They'll be gone. They will go right away by themselves, perhaps to the moon, and perhaps to the star of dolls. Mistag thought it her duty to inform Mrs. Heritage, who heard the story gravely and thank her, but repeated it brilliantly amid a good deal of merriment to the make believer's father when she dined at his house that night. Ah, he said, I must manage a mysterious disappearance for those rings. When next morning, Netta and her companions opened the temple, the rings were not there, but in their place was a slip of paper on which the word goodbye was written. Not one of the four was more astonished than Netta herself. It's really happened. I wasn't sure it would, you know. I shall tell Mistag, said Rose triumphantly. I wonder if we really were wicked, said Cecilia, with the troubled look in her angel eyes. I didn't mean to be. They never solved the mystery. Gradually, they forgot it. End of part one. Part two. Further off from heaven. Four years passed, and but two of the people of the story were left to lie. Rose Heritage and Netta. Rose Heritage had become Lady Mallard, lived in a big house in the country, and had a grown up family. Netta lived alone, in a small house in West Kensington. The two never corresponded and heard nothing of each other now. The friendship had never been violently broken off. It had perished from time and separation, as friendships will. Of the others, Cecilia was the first to die. As a child, her nurses had said that she was too good to live. As a girl of 18, she seemed too beautiful to live. It was a beauty so spiritual, so unearthly, that to see it was to feel that it was claimed elsewhere. Netta's father had died with the complaint on his lips that physical pain had so far destroyed his sense of humor, that he got no more pleasure out of leading articles. Jimmy had gone into the army, spend his own share of his father's property and most of Netta's, and finally redeemed by a gallant death, a life that had been remarkably extravagant and bad. Netta's hair was gray. Her face was worn and ascetic, but one would have said rightly that she must have been a handsome woman in her time. She had never married. At 17, she had been in love with a man whom she could not marry, a hopeless affair, and horrible enough for her while it lasted. It lasted three years. It was all forgotten now, or only the vague memory of a bad dream. Jimmy had been a care to her She never knew while he lived what might not be the next news that she would hear of him. She had become a learned, lonely woman now, had taken the degree of doctor of medicine, practiced a little, and wrote very often. She wrote mostly on her own special subject, but occasionally for less technical and more widely read journals. She had been writing for one of them this afternoon in her poorly furnished study upstairs. It was growing dark, and her reading lamp by her side was lit, but she had not yet had the curtains drawn, and through the windows she could see the white snow falling slowly into the dirty street. She had stopped writing in the middle of a sentence. And whether the sentimentalist she had flung down her pen impatiently, she had been teased all day by an effort to remember something, to explain what was, after all, a perfectly trivial thing. In turning over a cupboard full of papers, which had belonged to her father and been left practically untouched ever since they had been sent to her house, she had come across three old curtain rings, carefully tied together. A label was attached to them, and on it was written, the ink was faded and yellow, neta, the make believer. Underneath were a few words of Greek. She remembered vaguely that when she was a child, there was something about curtain rings she had played with them possibly, but if that was all, why had her father thought it worthwhile to keep them? What was it exactly that she used to do with those rings? This silly questions would keep coming into her head, and distracting her attention from her work. She shivered a little, the room was chilly, and took up her pen again, she wrote. And whether the sentimentalist believes it or whether he does not, this religious passion which he admires so vastly in his nuns and martyrs is but a perversion of an instinct which once more she paused. The room was really too cold. Looking around, she saw that the fire was almost out. She was accustomed to do things for herself, and she set to work to revive it at once. She opened the cupboard where she generally kept a few sticks for the purpose, but this afternoon there was none there. The curtain rings lay on her writing table, still tied together. Why, of course, they would do as well. In a few minutes, the fire was blazing brightly. She worn her hands at it, gazing abstractly into the red embers. Then she went back to her work, and wrote rapidly until the article was finished. Section 18 of Here and Hereafter 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 Campbell Schelp. Here and Hereafter by Barry Payne. The Unseen Power. Winter walked restlessly about the room as he told his story. He was a slender young man with very smooth hair, worn rather too long, a gold-mounted pincenese, and an expression which showed that vanity was not wholly absent from his composition. It was the story of a haunted house. The man who owned it, and was now unable to let it, had asked Winter to investigate. And the whole point of it is that you've got to come along and help me, he concluded. Thank you, said Mr. Arden, but I will not go. Arden was a man of fifty, white-haired, thin, heavily lying. Well, why not? said Winter, peevishly. I want to know why not, which seems to me it would be rather interesting. You can choose any night you like and Arden waived the subject away with one hand. It's useless to talk about it, he said. I'm not going. But what do you mean, said Winter? You are not going to tell me that you're superstitious or afraid. I should say, said Arden, that I am what you would call superstitious. You, I presume, are not, emphatically not, said Winter. Nor afraid, nor afraid, Winter echoed. Then why don't you go alone, said Arden? Winter murmured of sociability. It was no great fun to sit up all night by oneself, besides in the detection of a practical joke, which was probably all that it was. Two would be better than one. Arden must see for himself that, Arden broken impetuously. Look here, he said. Stop wandering about the room and sit down. I'll tell you why I won't come. Did you ever hear of Minerton Priory? Of course I've heard about it. I don't know the whole story, and I don't suppose anybody does. A man lost his life over it, didn't he? Two men lost their lives. I was the third man. Now you know why I won't play with these things anymore. Tell me about it, said Winter. I've only heard scraps here and there, and reports are always inaccurate. So you were actually one of them. I should never have guessed it. I will tell you the story if you wish. Will you have it now, or will you wait till you have finished your investigation of the house at Fallmouth? I will hear it now, said Winter. This is the story that Arden told. In 1871, my aunt, Lady Wytham, bought Minerton Priory. The place had been uninhabited for the best part of half a century, and was in very bad repair. It was cheap and it was picturesque, and both cheapness and picturesqueness appealed to Lady Wytham. Of the original Priory, there was very little left standing. Frequent additions had been made to it at different periods, and the general effect of the place when I first saw it was rather grim and queer. Lady Wytham was very energetic, had the place surveyed, and in a few months had got her workmen down there. In one wing of the house, a secret chamber had been found. It was on the ground floor, and it was a small room of perhaps 12 feet square. There was one window to it, placed very high up, and this window had been built up on the outside. Opposite to the window was a small fireplace, and the only entrance to the room was from the big dining hall. The hall was panelled, and one of the panels formed the door into the secret chamber. I believe this kind of thing is fairly common in old houses dating back to the times of religious and political trouble when hiding places were constantly wanted. The builders had not been at work many months at the Priory before there was trouble. I cannot say exactly what it was. It began with the unbreaking of the little window in the secret chamber. I know that the men refused point blank to do any work whatever in the great dining hall. Many were dismissed and new hands were taken on, but the trouble still persisted till finally Lady Wython herself went down to interview the clerk of works and the foreman or two. On the following day she wrote to me, she said that an idiotic story was being told with reference to the newly discovered chamber of Minnerton Priory, and she was anxious to have it satisfactorily knocked on the head. Would I and any friends that I might care to bring down spend a few nights in the secret chamber? It would probably be very uncomfortable, but she would send over furniture and a servant to wait on us. The post-script explained that the servant would not sleep in the house. The idea rather appealed to me, but being, unlike yourself, a little nervous over the business, I determined to take a couple of men down with me. One of them was an intimate friend of mine, Charles Stavald, a good natured giant, but a useful man in a row. He and I talked it over together and finally selected as the third man a young Dr. Bernard Ash. Ash was a remarkably brilliant young man, and we looked to him to supply the brains of the trio. If any practical joke were attempted, he would be quite certain to find it out, and both Stavald and myself were quite sure that some practical joke would be attempted. Minnerton Priory lies in a very conservative county. The rustics of the village were quite capable of resenting Lady Wytham's intrusion into the Priory. It had always been uninhabited in their father's time, and that would be quite reason enough to determine them that it should not be inhabited now. There were some objections to our choice. Ash led an extremely dissipated life, and Stavald and myself were a little inclined to doubt his nerves. This doubt, by the way, was not justified by results. We reached Minnerton in the afternoon. A large staff of men was busy at work at the place, but the only person in or anywhere near the Great Dining Hall was Lady Wytham's servant, Rudd. She could not have sent us a better man. He could turn his hand to anything. He had already unpacked the beds and other furniture that had been sent and put them in place, and was at present engaged on getting dinner for us. We went through the dining hall and into the secret chamber. This won't do, said Ash at once. What don't do? asked Stavald. Why, there's no furniture in here of any kind. One can't sleep on those stone flags. Are we going to sleep in here? I asked. One of us is, he said. I called up Rudd and gave my directions. He brought mattresses and made up a bed on the floor. Then we went round and examined the walls carefully, for, as Ash observed, where there is one trick panel, there may be another. But we could find nothing that seemed in any way suspicious. We came back into the Great Hall and sat down there and talked the thing over. It was now growing dusk. Already the tapping and hammering of the workmen had seized, and we had heard them laughing as they passed the window on their way home. Right away at the other end of the hall came the chink of plates and the hiss of a frying pan where Rudd was busy with his preparations. He had brought four big lamps with him, and these he now lit, but there seemed to be something impenetrable about the darkness of this vast room. The light was still dim with masses of dark shadow waving in the far corners and in the vaulted roof above us. Who's going to sleep in the haunted chamber? Stavald asked. I am, said Ash. We squabbled about it and finally decided to toss for it. Ash had his own way. He was to sleep there that night, Stavald was to sleep there the second night, and I myself was left the third night. By this time we had little doubt that we should be at the bottom of the mystery. Rudd gave us an excellent dinner and had shown wisdom in his choice of the wine which he had brought with him. The wine made glad the heart of man and before dinner was over we were treating the whole thing more as an amusing kind of spree than as a serious investigation. At ten o'clock Rudd inquired at what hour we should like breakfast in the morning and asked if there was anything further he could do for us that night. Aren't you going to stop and see the ghost, Rudd? I asked. I think not, sir. He said quietly. Her ladyship had arranged, sir, that I should sleep at the inn. So we let him go, and I had a curious feeling that with him went the most competent man of the four. Perhaps the same idea had occurred to Ash. He's a perfect wonder, said Ash. Fancy being able to turn out a dinner like that here with no proper appliances of any kind. I don't call it cooking, I call it conjuring tricks. Perhaps you'll see some more conjuring tricks a little later, said Stavald grimly. After dinner we played poker for an hour or so and then turned in. One of the lamps was left burning in the big hall and Ash took a candle with him into the secret chamber. But he did not propose to leave it lighted. It wouldn't be playing the game, he said. Sometime after I had gotten to bed I could hear Ash tapping on the panels and trying them again, and I could see the light under the door. Stavald was already heavily sleeping. I knew nothing more till I was awakened by him early on the following morning. Rudd had already returned and was preparing breakfast. Naturally our first move was to the secret chamber. We opened the panel door and went in. Ash's clothes were lying on the only chair in the room. The bed had been slept in, but there was no one there now. I noticed that the two candlesticks had also vanished. For a moment or two neither of us spoke and then I asked my companion what he made of it. That's all right, he said. Ash woke early and has slipped down to the river in his pajamas to get a swim. It's ten to one we find him there. It was not impossible, but I was surprised that he had not awakened either of us in passing through the hall. We picked up our towels and went down to the river. We called and got no answer but we had not at this time begun to be anxious. Possibly after his bath he had gone off for a stroll through the plantations. We took a long swim, lit our pipes and walked up to the house. The workmen were busy now on the new part far away from the big hall. In the hall itself we found breakfast laid for three. Dr. Ash has come back then, I said to Rudd. Rudd looked puzzled. I have not seen him this morning, sir. Drowned himself. I suggested to Savold. Not a bit of it. Why should he? This is a little practical joke of Ash's. We'll see if he doesn't get tired of it before we do. Hunger will bring him back at lunchtime. Late in the afternoon he had not returned and we sent word up to the police station. The police station sent us the usual idiot who made his notes and did his best to look as if he knew what to do. We spent the rest of the day in searching for Ash with no success. At ten o'clock we gave it up and Rudd went back to the inn. We did very little talking and I had some curious and inexplicable feelings as I sat there in the silence. My tobacco pouch lay on the table at arm's length and I found myself thinking that I might have an impulse to take it up in my hand but that as I did not want the pouch at the moment I should resist the impulse. Then my hand shot right out to the pouch, gripped it and shook it. What the devil are you doing? said Savold. I flung the pouch down and got up for my chair. Dropping off to sleep I fancy, I said. You didn't look it. Well, I ought to know, Audentai. Help me to drag another bed into that chamber there. We'll see it through together tonight. Oh no we won't, said my companion. If we did that we should leave this hall here for the yeast of the practical jokers if there are any. You will sleep here tonight. I shall take my turn in the secret chamber, only if I can't help it I shan't sleep. I wonder where on earth Ash is, I said. We don't know and it won't improve our nerves to imagine. Yours seem a bit jumpy anyhow. We've done all we can to find him, leave it at that. I did not expect to sleep that night, yet sleep came to me in fits. I had wakened many times and at last I determined that I might as well get up. In half an hour the grey dawn would be beginning. I remember that Savold had told me that he did not mean to go to sleep. I whistled softly as I slipped on my clothes so that he might hear that I was moving about and join me. As he did not come I listened at the door of the chamber and heard no sound. In a moment I was standing inside it with the lamp shaking in my hand. The room was exactly as we had found it the morning before. There was nobody there. The bed had been slept in and was now empty. The clothes lay on the chair, the candlestick had gone. I was horribly frightened. I did not wait for Raj to come back. I went on to the village police station at once and told my story. There was no doubt that this was a serious matter and before breakfast time an inspector had arrived from Saltam. Accompanied by a sergeant and myself he came over to the priory and into the dining hall. I think I'll take a look around by myself first, he said. You can wait here. He went into the chamber and I could hear his heavy boots on the flags and the useless tapping on the walls. I was confident that nothing could be found there. There were a few minutes of silence and he opened the door and said, will you come in here Mr. Arden? I went in and saw that the bed had been pulled out from its usual place in the corner. He pointed to a large flagstone which the bed had covered. I should like to show you, sir, a curious optical effect there is in this room. Would you mind standing on that flagstone there? I came round the bed to it and my foot had just touched it when I was jerked backwards and fell to the floor. Beg your pardon, sir, said the inspector behind me. I had to satisfy myself that you didn't know of the trap. See here. He knelt down beside the big flagstone and touched it lightly with his fingers. It was exactly balanced by a big iron pin to the center and it now swung open showing a dark shaft going far down into the earth. You mean that they are down there, I said. Not a doubt. Each of them, as is only natural, tried the floor as well as the walls and moved the bed for the purpose. That finished them. It's the merest chance that I didn't go down the shaft myself. Well, I said, the sooner we go down there the better. Where can we get a rope? The inspector picked up a small tin matchbox and emptied out the matches into the palm of his hand. Listen, he said. He flung the box down the shaft. We listened and listened, but heard no sound. See, he said. That's deep. No use to get a rope there. Anyone who fell down there is dead. That's been a well, I should say. I was angry with a man's cocksurity and said that I was going down in any case. A rope was brought and attached to a lighted lantern. The lantern was lowered, and in a few yards went out. The experiment was tried again and again, and each time the lantern was extinguished by the foul air. It was hopeless. No human being could have lived for five minutes down there. I rose from the floor, put on my coat, and turned to the inspector. This explains nothing, I said. On the morning that Dr. Ash was missed, I went in here with Mr. Stavold, and we found the bed placed as it had been the night before, immediately over this trap. If Dr. Ash fell down it, how did he put the bed back after him? The same thing applies to Mr. Stavold. Again, the bed was left over the trap. They did not move the bed back again, but somebody else did. Who? That is what I hope to find out tonight. Are you yourself willing to sleep tonight in the big hall alone? Certainly I don't exactly see what the idea is. Never mind about that. It may come to nothing. One can but try. You say that Rud locked the door to this hall when he went out at night? Yes, a modern lock had been fitted, and the door locked itself as soon as it was shut. It could only be opened from the outside of the latch key. And no one put yourself that you know of had a key. No one that I know of? Very well, I have a few things to see after. I must speak to this man, Rud. I shall see you again before nightfall. I spent a horribly long day. I had to telegraph to the relatives of my two friends. I sent Rud for books and tried in vain to read. Rud was aware that the police had a suspicious eye upon him and was in a state of suppressed fury. While Rud was away, I again examined the inner chamber. The window was too high up to be reached by anyone within the room and too closely barged to admit of anyone passing through it. The chimney was equally impassable. No vestige of hope was left to me. At 10 o'clock the inspector came in and told me that he had given up for the night. He looked thoughtfully towards the whiskey decanter. I gave him a drink and mixed one for myself. Then he said good night and went off. I had not expected to sleep but an insurmountable drowsiness came over me. I flung myself down on the bed as I was without undressing, hoping that in this way I should wake again in an hour or so. When I woke the room was brightly lighted. The inspector, two of his men, and Rud himself were all there. I was startled. What's the matter? What's up? I said. Nothing much, said the inspector, but I know who put the bed back in its place. Who was it? It was yourself, sir. You did it in your sleep. It had occurred to me that this was just possible and I had a man watching through the window of the room. It is impossible, I said. I should know something of it. I am sure I have been here ever since you left me. Your man must have made a mistake. My man made no mistake, said the inspector, dryly. For my man happened to be myself. You came in, set the lamp down, pushed the bed over to one corner and then went to the chair where you seemed to be folding up imaginary clothes. The bodies were recovered two days later and the whole story of course got into the papers. I was away from England for some years after that. It was one of the things that one wishes to forget. You ask me to take part in another of these investigations. In all probability, there is nothing to investigate but a practical joke or a chance noise or something equally explicable. But you will understand that I will not take the risk that there may be something else. But my dear Arden, said Winter, balancing the pinsnets in his hand. There is nothing whatever in the story that you have told me. What could be more natural than that your two friends should examine the floor, should do so with too little care, and should reap the consequences? The repeated dream is itself quite natural. I should imagine there are a few people who have not had it. At the most, it is a coincidence that the dream, accompanied by some Namuism, should have come through nice and succession. But there is nothing supernatural there. Never mind that word supernatural. Do you think there is anything inexplicable? You are forgetting that the bed in that chamber had been slept in both nights. The sleeper had been awakened by some sound. What was it? What drew him to the trap door? What was it that took possession of my will and my body so that my own personality was as blotted out as if I had been dead? But, he added impatiently, I do not want to convince you. When you are brought in touch, as I have been, with the unseen power, you will be convinced. As your friend, I hope you never will be. End of Section 18, Recording by Campbell Sheldt. Section 19 of Here and Here After. 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 Campbell Sheldt. Here and Here After by Barry Payne. A brisk engagement. He stepped out of the fashionable bazaar into the crowded street where the July sun flashed on the ugly and beautiful and on the grey background. He was a young man with the face of a dreamer, but his hair was properly cut and he was as well and cleanly turned out as if he had been a soldier. He wore in his buttonhole a red rose. It was not his habit to decorate himself florally, but these things happen at bazaars. Some pretty fool girl had sold it to him. And Lady Mabel Silverton, who is not pretty, but a dear, sweet creature, had sold him iced coffee and drunk it for him. She would do anything for her charity, and bothered him to come and sing one Saturday night to her darling factory girls, who would be so very, very grateful. The hum of many nicely toned voices and the passionate waltz of the mauve Hungarians still blended in swam in his ears. He still seemed to smell the scent of the smoldering incense sticks on the stall where Mrs. Bunningham Smith clad in an oriental robe of thoroughly western impropriety, sold penny Turkish emulets, at ten shillings apiece to those young men who were sufficiently fond of her for the purpose. He was stupid with it all. He left it, and the long string of characters at the doors, and wandered out into the park. And he chose the more deserted park of the park. Yes, it was no worse than anything else, as his cousin had said when she had bothered him into going. But the young man was mildly, temporarily, and uncomplainingly bored with most things. There was too much sugar in the cup. He found the taste sickly. This London world on which he lived was too luxurious, too idle, and worked too hard at being too idle. He was weary of the mechanical metallic frivolity of smart people, frivolity without one touch of sincerity and earnestness to give it contrast and effect. It was the end of the season, and he would soon be away in the country, only to find London in the country. There would be the same people with the same bad habits merely transplanted to a scene which did not suit them. He stood still and looked around him. There was a man with a crowd before him in the distance by the marble arch. He waved his arms and lectured violently. Children chased one another across the grass. Down the path towards him came a girl who held herself well. A tramp under the trees roused himself from slumber and began slowly and painfully to put on his boots. And the young man thought it would make the very pleasantest holiday if he could change with somebody, even with a tramp under the trees for a few hours and get rid of himself. He chanced to remember that rose in his coat and did not like it. He raised his hand to take it out. And the girl whose graceful carriage he had noticed stepped shyly up to him. It is you then, it must be, she said in rather a frightened voice. In a flash he saw that the girl mistook him for somebody else and, since chance welled it, decided to be for a while that somebody. Certainly it is, he said. I do hope I have not kept you waiting. This was more interesting than private theatricals, but even as he spoke it struck him that it would be easier if he knew who he was supposed to be. She was charming, he thought, and not foolish. The face was full of life and expression. He noted that she looked at him and away from him in quick flashes, as if trying to hide a surprised curiosity. No, she said. I have only just come. I think we are both a few minutes before the time. You did not seem quite, well, quite sure of it when you recognized me. She laughed, showing her pretty teeth. You did not seem to be looking out for me. I was, but in the wrong direction. Yes, of course you didn't know which way I should come. Then I thought you looked rather too spondid for a solicitor's clerk. You don't mind my saying that? She added rapidly. So he was a solicitor's clerk in his new impersonation. This was useful information. Not in the least, we put on our nicest clothes for these occasions. My firm expects me to keep one good suit to wear when I have to go and see wealthy and important clients to or take their instructions. He felt that this was a happy touch. He was falling quite easily into his part. And if I may say so, that must be quite your prettiest dress. She glanced downward at it. She raised her eyebrows and there was a quaint prettiness in the willful twist of her lips. She seemed perplexed. I don't think so, she said. And what made you decide that it was really I? You were standing there just at the spot we arranged and just at the time we arranged. You were wearing the red rose and you raised your hand as if to call my attention to it. It was beyond a mistake. But why did you say in your letter that you were of medium height? You are tall. Slightly over medium height, perhaps. I should hardly say tall. In many ways you are not what I expected. These preconceived ideas of people are always wrong. But indeed you don't look the part at all. Really? No, she said. I should have taken you for a man of leisure. Wealthy, rather bored with life. Clever perhaps. Certainly selfish. And she would have taken him for very much what he was. I will plead guilty to the last item. And now what shall we do? Do just as we arranged of course. We can stroll through the park for half an hour. Talk, make each other's acquaintance. And then I shall see if in any way I can help you in your work and make your life happier. Suppose, said the young man. We changed the program a little. Let me take you down to Bond Street and give you some tea there. The look of surprise became almost suspicion. She hesitated for a moment. Very well, she said. That will be charming. They had reached the park gate. The young man stopped a handsome and they got in. You are extravagant, she said. We might have taken a bus or the tube. We might even have walked. The young man reminded himself that he was now a solicitor's clerk. True, he said. But it is only a chilling fair. And Saturday afternoon is our holiday, you know. I shall insist on paying half the cab and half everything. That must be just as you wish. But if you do, it will be a disappointment for me. And it is really not a serious matter, even for me. She seemed to think this over. Lady Mabel met them in her Victoria and the young man saluted her. Very well, said the girl suddenly. I won't pay for anything at all. Thanks so much, said the young man. But all of this, said the girl, much as if she had been speaking to herself, is not in the least like what I had expected. At the shop in Bond Street, he took her upstairs to a table in a secluded corner. You seem to know your way about this place, she said as she embuttoned her gloves. I was here once on business and I never forget places. Five times since we left the park, we have met people that you knew. Yes, queer coincidence, isn't it? And they were all wealthy-looking people. Clients, he said dreamily. All clients. Then, with an awakening interest, will you have tea or coffee? Tea, please? And they all smiled and bowed to you just as if they had been your personal friends. Well, you know, it's like this. I've had to deal with them in some very important family matters. Dark secrets. They possibly have the feeling that it was a dream. They possibly have the feeling that it is better to be on good terms with me, that I shall be more careful not to talk about their secrets, you know. Even as the young man said it, he was aware of the remarkable feebleness of it. So apparently was the girl. But I thought solicitors never talked about their client's business, she said. They don't, of course, certainly not. But then I'm not a solicitor. I'm only a clerk. Still, it's a mistaken feeling. I've often wondered how it gets to be so common. The young man felt that the game, though interesting, was becoming difficult. He reflected that at any minute people who knew him might come in and insist on talking to him. And then the girl would discover everything and never forgive him. The more he saw of her, the more he wanted to be forgiven when the game came to its end. He was unable to place her exactly. She was not a typist, she seemed too educated to be a governess. It was even more certain that she was not a fashionable London woman. She might possibly be a student of one of the arts. She was a little imperious in her way, yet she had the kindest and friendliest eyes. She was transparently good, and he guessed that unconventionality was unusual with her. She had not spoiled its effect for herself by making it commonplace. And who on earth was this solicitor's clerk whom this charming person had meant to meet, and why had she been going to meet him? It occurred to the young man that he would like to wring the neck of that clerk, whom he was at present fraudulently understudying, for his infernal impertinence. Now, said the girl, I want you to tell me why you wrote in the first instance. This was a facer, he chanced it. But I think you know, he said, and it turned out very well. Yes, I do, more or less. I know you read my verses in that you then wrote to me at the office of the paper and said the kindest things. The young man shook his head. They were less than the truth, he said. But after all the idea in the verses, the kindred souls that fate keeps strangers to each other. That's not a new idea. You must have seen something of the kind scores of times before. If I had seen it before, I did not remember it. I certainly had not seen it treated in that way. Your poems seem to come to me like a message. This for a young man who had not read one word of the poem was distinctly good, or if you prefer it distinctly bad. Well, when you wrote the first letter, had you any idea of writing the second, the one in which you asked me to meet you? I had to see how you would take it. I know it was great presumption on my part to hope for anything of the kind. It was most good of you to come. I wondered how long it would be before you thanked me. A thousand pardons, I see little society, of course. I am shy and awkward. I never say the right thing. But you are not shy and awkward. You are not at all what I expected. I have your second letter here. Listen, I leave out the part where you speak of your loneliness. There are a few lives, said the young man sorrowfully. More solitary than that of a solicitor's clerk. You don't know. Nor for that matter did he. Then the letter goes on. If you could make it convenient to spare me a few moments of your valuable time. Did I really say that? Of course you did. Here it is. These business forms ring in one's head. They get into one's blood. One uses them unconsciously and inelegantly. I will read on. If you could make it convenient to spare me a few moments of your valuable time, I should like to have a go at telling you my story. Sympathy, in my case, has generally been conspicuous by its absence, but I think I could depend on the author of The Strangers. I am rather a doleful sort, I am afraid, but I dare say you don't care for lurking about any more than I do. He had to hear that letter through to the end, and there was a good deal more of it. He had made himself responsible for the personality of a man who described himself as rather a doleful sort and said that he did not care for lurking about, and spoke of a thing being conspicuous by its absence. And there was not even the possibility of protest. He had to accept it. He could not even grown out loud. The punishment for yielding to sudden impulses was heavy indeed. Now, she went on, you see what I mean when I say that you do not at all match with the Samuel Pepper who wrote that letter. His name was Samuel Pepper then. It was almost too much. This, he felt, would be a lifelong lesson to him. He had to say something, but, he pleaded, few people write and speak in just the same way. That is not my point. You write to me as a humble pleader for a favor. Naturally. When you meet me, you take something very much like the error of an amused social superior. I hope not, exclaimed the young man with real sincerity. He struggled mentally after a correct Samuel Pepper attitude. It was quite unintentional and no disrespect meant. I suppose on a Saturday out, when I come up west, I get a bit above myself in my station, but I never meant to presume. He felt that this had the right Perperian touch of humble commonness. In the officer at home, you mean in the Guildford Street boarding house? Quite so. It's the only London home I've got. In the officer at home, I'm quite a different person. Oh please, I don't mention the difference in manner because I care two pence about it. Perhaps I should say which did puzzle me at first, but to point out an inconsistency which puzzles me. And why you have not told me that story that you wished me to hear? Why is it that you have not even referred to it? Ah, said the young man, how often one gets to the verge of a confession and then shirks it. Believe me, it is not an easy story for me to tell. Perhaps even it would be better for me to bear my burden alone. Very well, and those poems that you have written, you wish to show them to me to get my opinion and see if I could help you towards publication. My fatal shyness, you, a writer yourself must know what that is. He felt that he was quite lost, that the girl was getting angry, and he wished he could think of some way out of it. So I am not to have your verses or your story, but I think I will trouble you to hear a little of my story. You are not Samuel Pepper. With my experience of story, writing, I ought to have seen that that was a make-up name to suit the part of a solicitor's clerk. There is no Samuel Pepper. Your letters then were not genuine. They were very well done. As an artist, I congratulate you. The thing that puzzles me is that you could not keep it up better when you had trapped me into meeting you. You cannot act a bit. You have not even dressed the part. You have not even taken the trouble to put a few verses and manuscript in your pocket. I will tell you why you succeeded in doing so. It is deceiving me in your letters. I live with my family and I write stories and verses. I know they are not very good, but the money that I get for them is a consideration, and I hope with practice to do better. You touched my vanity. It is not often that anybody takes any notice of my work. You appealed to my compassion. That part of your letter where you spoke of your loneliness among the people at the boarding house seemed to me to be quite simple and unaffected. I made some impression on me. I was interested in what you said about your writing and I remembered what a struggle I had at first myself. I thought I could help you. I felt safe because I trusted to your timidity and your sense of the difference between us, so cleverly conveyed in your letters. That was why you were able to trap me and it will teach me in future not to be vain or kindhearted. I don't know why you wanted to do it. You have had your joke perhaps or you have won your bet. You won't make the mistake of supposing that you have made my acquaintance or of writing to me again. Now I am going. So that was it. She had taken a firm feminine intelligent grasp of the wrong end of the stick. She had also caught up her gloves. Her eyes were filled with tears of rage and he felt very bad indeed. If he had asked for the stop she would have hurried away all the quicker. He could see that. Our meeting was a chance one. He said, I know nothing of pepper or his letters except what you have told me. You mistook me for the man you are going to meet. I am sorry I did not correct your mistake since it has pained you. Otherwise I should have been very glad of it. She sat down again bewildered. Chance? She said. Be your chance. I shouldn't like to say much for my case this afternoon but really I don't make best of jokes of that kind. I was at a silly bazaar in Hill Street this afternoon for a few minutes and some idiot sold me this rose. I don't wear flowers and I was on the point of taking it out of my coat when he spoke to me. The other man probably arrived after we had gone you remember you said that we were a few minutes before the time. The girl leaned her elbow on the table and her head on her hand and looked at him intently. It is too amazing she said. I think you are telling me the truth now but how am I to know? You have not behaved well you have deceived me. There were perplexed pauses between her sentences. I tried to deceive you with the intention of undeceiving you in the end. You must own that I failed and that the humiliation is mine. But it is true that I have behaved badly and it is true that I am sorry for it. Why did you do it? I can't think why. Do you remember your first impression of me? Perfectly. I am not clever but in other respects you were about right. I was tired of everything and particularly tired of myself. It was a sudden whim. I began it in order to get away from myself. But why did you go on with it? I went on with it to be with you. She looked away from him and there was a quick flash of color in her cheeks. Anyhow, she said, the mistake is at an end now. I must be going. But she did not speak very resolutely. Will you forgive me before you go? Why should I forgive you? Because, said the young man with some audacity, I have done you a very great service. Her eyebrows were interrogative. Yes, I have stopped you from meeting this pepper person. I know your motives. I don't believe in the vanity at all. It is natural to be pleased when one's work is praised. I'm always pleased if anybody likes my music. I do believe that you were actuated solely by your kindness of heart and nothing else. But you were doing an indiscreet thing and I feel sure from his letters that this man would have misunderstood it. Even if he had not shown presumption in his manner to you, I am sure he would have talked you over afterwards at his disgusting boarding house and with his fellow clerks. Why did he propose a meeting at all? Why could he not have submitted his dog world to you by post if you were kind enough to look at it for him? Why did he suggest this red rose, nonsense if he had not got some romantic ideas in his stupid head? The man's impertinent simply stackers me. She smiled a little. You are right, perhaps. It was indiscreet. But you are too hard on him. I don't think so. I want you to promise me you will not meet him. You can write and say that you have changed your mind. He can post his verses to you if you want to let him down easily. Very well. I think that would be best, though I don't know why I should promise you. Goodbye. Already. I live away at Cerberton. I have a train to catch. Am I forgiven? Yes, quite. Then let me at least take you as far as Waterloo. She said nothing. But they went to Waterloo together and in the cab they explained quite a number of things about themselves to each other. He also got into the train with her and they had the courage to themselves. And there he told her that he loved her and wished to marry her, and he did it far more beautifully than a bare record of the facts can suggest. She tried to speak three times and failed, so he understood her perfectly. And some few minutes after they had exchanged their hearts' love, they also exchanged their names and addresses. Lady Mabled Silverton says that it is a perfectly ideal marriage. The world thinks that he might have done much better for himself. He is inclined to agree with Lady Mabled. His wife would say that she agreed with the world, but I should doubt her sincerity. End of section 19, recording by Campbell Shelp. Here and hereafter by Barry Payne. On the terrace of Shepherds were many groups, German, American, and English, stopping for a few days in Cairo on their way home. In the street in front of the terrace, the hawkers displayed their wares, pan pipes, fly whisks, images of the Sphinx, picture postcards, matches. One offered for sale an inlaid table that he carried on his head. Another handed up an old flintlock pistol, heavily mounted in silver, for the inspection of a pretty girl from Cincinnati. Every now and then a carriage drove up, and a party of tourists, passed by the steps, followed by a dragoman, laden with codex and dust cloaks, and bizarre purchases. The bright sunlight flooded a scene of brilliant colors. At one of the tables, next to that where the pretty girl from Cincinnati was sipping her tea, sat three men of different ages. Mr. Nathaniel Brooks, a man of some sixty years, and a rather distinguished appearance, was discussing total prohibitions with Dr. Henson Blake. The doctor was a man of wiry build with the face of a hawk, and that indescribable look which comes only of strength and experience. The third man listened and fidgeted. From babyhood he had been precocious and preferred to associate with those who were older than he was. In consequence, he sometimes had to sit, as now, rather on the outside of the association, he smoked endless cigarettes and drank something which was cold and not good for him out of a long glass in which the ice tinkled pleasantly. He was a fair-haired young man, whom the sun had merely freckled. He wore a single eyeglass, but did not always dare to use it. When you had got to the bottom of his failings, you found, fundamentally by no means a bad sort of man, by name, Percival Lake. This was his first year in Egypt. Both Brooks and the doctor had known Egypt for many years. It was Brooks who was speaking. The Follaheen should be allowed to dig, he said, and it should be made well worth their while to dig. But they do, said the doctor. They all of them do it in the summer, and they always have done. Yes, said Brooks, prohibitions which are too strict are always evaded. It's the same thing with Hashish. But what I mean is that if we succeed in stopping the Follaheen from digging, the working European Egyptologist will find very little. The native will take care of that, and this is a case where the native has knowledge that the European can get only from him. That's possible. The doctor agreed. What's this about Hashish? Young man asked. I thought it was the kind of drug that one came across frequently in stories and rarely in chemist shops and nowhere else. Nominally, said Brooks, there is no Hashish in Egypt. It is not allowed. It is contraband. I forget how many tons of it were seized last year, and I should be sorry to say how many managed to get through. Then the natives really use it? Of course they do. There is a common type in all races which requires a nerve alternative and will have it. If religion or sentiment or custom shuts out alcohol, then it will be opium or Hashish. Egypt goes for Hashish. And the prohibition is of no use. Ask Lake. I wouldn't say that, Brooks replied grimly. If a native has a quarrel with his neighbor, he can and sometimes does, so cannabis and deca in his neighbor's land and then report him for growing illegal stuff as soon as the crop comes up. That is useful. Speaking seriously, the prohibition may lessen the amount of Hashish consumed, and undoubtedly has raised its price considerably. Vices are the monopoly of the rich. All the same I had a boy working on my Dahabia last year who was an excellent fellow. This year he was impossible and I had to sack him. That was Hashish. And what is the effect of it? Ask the doctor. If you take enough and take it long enough, said Dr. Henson Blake, the effect is insanity. The given percentage in the asylums is fairly high and should perhaps be higher. They don't admit that they smoke Hashish or have ever smoked it if they can help it, and it cannot always be spotted. But what is the immediate effect? A sense of bienniatry, of the absence of all worry. Sometimes there are delusions. The typical smoker generally gets an excessive vanity, swelled head and becomes very quarrelsome. That is why Brooks had to sack that boy of his. All the same, said Blake, I should very much like to try it. If I thought you meant that, the doctor began, with a suspicion of a sneer. Blake was rather angry. I can assure you I am not taking for effect There are some people who don't you know. All right, said the doctor, unperturbed. Keep your hair on. I've got some tobacco prepared with Hashish upstairs. It is some that I had to confiscate. I'll give you a pipeful and you can try it after dinner. Smoke it in your own room though, not downstairs. Leave it alone, growled Brooks. Thanks very much, said Blake to the doctor. I'll come up with you now and get it. The three men rose, as they did so the pretty girl from Cincinnati stepped up to the doctor. Say, doctor, listen to me. Am I to give that man five dollars and a half for this? Doctor took the scarab in his hand and examined it. No, Miss Jocelyn, he said. Why not? I call that a dandy scarab. White amethyst, genuine antique. It is not white amethyst, and I know the man who made it, the day before yesterday. If you want it for a toy, ten piastras is an outside price. The man will take that. My, exclaimed Jocelyn. Thank you very much. And she returned to her negotiations. The three men passed through into the hall. Two. After dinner, Brooks and Dr. Hansen Blake went off to see a friend at the Savoy. They left with grim, half-chafing junctions to young Blake to take care of himself. Blake, a little sulky, settled himself in one corner of the hall to smoke a cigarette before his experiment. And suddenly, Miss Jocelyn, whom he did not know, came up to him. She was a dark girl, pale-skinned and red-lipped. She had a little of that jaunty, almost slingy American error of being able to take care of herself, but she also carried the impression that this error was superficial, and underneath it there might be poetry of a rather volcanic order. She sat down quietly on the other side of the table and said, Do you not know me, Mr. Lake? Lake said that at any rate he was charmed to have the privilege of making her acquaintance. But, she went on, I want you to behave just as if you had known me for some time. My aunt Esmeralda is watching us from a way back and she's pretty cute. Don't smile too much. Offer me a cigarette or order some coffee for me, as if it were an ordinary thing that you had often done before for me. Don't look at me all the time. Look away now and then. I'll tell you why I'm doing this directly. Lake did his best to act the part and to take things more simply. He was consumed with curiosity and for that reason he said, as he lighted her cigarette, It is so nice of you to do this, to take pity on my loneliness, that I feel the reason why does not matter at all. I'm unquestioningly contented with things as they are. I just want to tell you, I know Dr. Henson Blake. We were on the tourist boat together. He's playing it low down on you. That tobacco he gave you is ordinary tobacco. He wants to make you say afterwards that you got a lot of funny sensations out of it, and then he'll say there was no hashishin in it at all and just laugh at you. You needn't ask me how I know, but it's the truth. I believe you. The possibility of it had occurred to me. Well, I have only to tell him that I got no sensations at all and that's all over with this little joke. Yes, said Miss Jocelyn. But you can get back on him. That's better. How? Spin him a long story. Tell him you smoked it and gave you visions. Then when he's finished with his laugh, give him his tobacco back again to prove that you knew his game all the time. Excellent! He took from his pocket a little box in which the tobacco was placed, put it in one of the hotel envelopes, and sealed it and dated it. But the triumph must be yours, he said. She leaned forward seriously. Listen to me. You don't want to mention my name. You don't even know it, but I'm Irene Jocelyn. I've put confidence in you. See, he's not got to know that I've had anything to do with it. You promise me that? Certainly, but I'm puzzled. Why do you come along to save me from making myself ridiculous? It's very kind of you. I'm very glad you've done it, but why? She hesitated and blushed slightly. For myself, perhaps. It seemed promising. He was emboldened. What a pity I have wasted my time by not meeting you before. Have you been long in Cairo? A few days, she said absentmindedly. My, she exclaimed. If I don't get back to my head Esmeralda right now, there's going to be a deal of trouble. I'll say good night to you, Mr. Lake. He was rather staggered. Good night, he said. But I hope this is not the last time. It depends. Mind that when he's about, you don't know me. He watched her as she went up the hall. Her bright smile came off easily. She looked a little tired and hunted. That night he could come to no satisfactory explanation. He could only decide to do exactly as he had been told and wait events. In the meantime the girl's face haunted him, and always as it had been, when she did not know that he could see her, always with that tired and hunted look. What had been her story? What was inside her heart and mind? What cards was she playing? Why had she spoken to him? The questions were endless. His interest in her, strangely powerful, kept him for long awake. Three. The little forest was played out with great success next morning. Lake told a beautiful story, and did it the better because Irene Jocelyn, breakfasting alone at the next table, was listening intently. After smoking the hashish he had heard the Sphinx talking, then a black and limitless ocean had broken over it, and out of the ocean a strange white woman had crept and cut herself with a gold-handled knife. Good, said the doctor with a dry triumph, and the more interesting because you have never had any hashish at all. No, asked Lake. I thought that would be it. He tossed the envelope across to the doctor. You'll find your tobacco inside. How do you give it that green color? I think the score is with me. The doctor was angry, the more so because Brooks was undistinguishably amused at the failure, but he made one shrewd guess. If I had mentioned the thing to a solitary soul, I should have been certain that it had been given away to you. As it is, I can't see how you came to think of it yourself. It's quite unlike you. Four. For the next two days Irene Jocelyn successfully avoided young Lake, and thereby drove him to the verge of madness. It even occurred to him to play a bold stroke and ask the doctor to introduce him. But he had the reasonable conviction that that introduction would do him more harm than good with this strange girl. He grew to hate Henson Blake. It was evident that while he was there, Irene would not speak. He invented excuses to get him out of the way. On the third day, she came up to him in the hall with hand outstretched. I just want to say goodbye to you, Mr. Lake. She said, We leave this afternoon. Won't you tell me anything before you go? I can find no reason why you should have interested yourself in my defense. Still less can I find any reason why you should have avoided me ever since. But I wasn't interested in you. You're not, how do you say, not in this act. Didn't I tell you that I was doing it for myself? Yes. You are clever. You found out the doctor's trick. I know him. I told you that I met him on the tourist boat. I knew what he would do. I'm stupid, for I also knew him and did not find out. I'm not vain enough, believe me, to suppose that you did this for love of me. She laughed and snapped her fingers. I wished a God that you had, he added, and the tone and simplicity of the words carried conviction. She changed her manner. She became serious. What was done not for love of you was done for hate of somebody else. Can't you imagine a woman wanting to hit back and too proud to let it be known that she wants to hit it all? Can't you imagine her hungering and thirsting to see a certain man fail, if only in some little thing, just for once? Can't you? Oh, you don't want the whole humiliating story, do you? No, no. I'm sorry. Goodbye. Goodbye. Only, you know, that is not for hate of a man. If you hated, there might be a chance for those who loved. She shook her head and turned away. A minute later he heard her laughing and talking her best American to a group of hotel acquaintances. And this is perhaps the primary reason why Perseville Lake did ultimately take to Hashish in sober earnest. His friends have ceased to speak of him. Dr. Henson Blake is interested in the case. End of section 20. Recording by Michael Price. Section 21 of here and hereafter. 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 Cornel Nemesh. Rino Nevada. Here and hereafter. By Barry Payne. The Gardener. Seven years today have I been in this place and I'm beginning to ask myself whether it is not time that I made a move. When I come to think of it, in my last place I had 10 under me and here it's but three men and a boy. And I always have said and always shall say that a boy is worse than nothing. In some ways I might be sorry to leave. There is work which I have begun here and which I should be sorry to see pass into other hands to be made a model of. Still, as my father used to say, if you don't respect yourself, nobody's going to respect you. And I'm in two minds whether I ought to put up with such language as I had today. It's all damned carolessness, he said. You know how particular I am about those Blanheims and I sooner have lost anything in the garden. It isn't because you can't do it. I've always been proud of my melons before. It's just because you've got caroless and don't care a curse how much you neglect your work. Most men would have given you the sack at once and you shall have it from me if ever I find anything of this kind again. That's what he said. And in one way it's all true enough that lot of melons should have been shot up at the right time and I've lost them in consequence. But it's the first time I've lost anything like that all the years I've been here and I don't know that I feel inclined to put up with it. Here I am, a single man of good character. There may be some as can teach me a little about my business and I'm always willing to learn, but I never found them yet. I can show as good testimonials as anybody that I'm not likely to belong out of a birth. Even if I was, it wouldn't much matter for not being a fool like towns. I haven't got a wife and six children to keep. And I've been able to put by money. One of those town's children walked back with me as I came from my work today. It was the one they called Hilda. She's a pretty enough child, but nothing like what towns thinks. The way that man talks about them, as if they were a set of angels, make me laugh. Thank God, I've none of my own to make a fool of myself about. It's lucky for towns too that I'm not a married man, for otherwise I should have had the lodge and he wouldn't. And the lodge is a lot better than anything he could afford out of his wages. About half past eight tonight, towns came round to the cottage to see me and pulled out a rabbit from under his coat. I don't know whether you'd care about anything in this way, Mr. Adam, he said. It's a nice fat young rabbit. Where did you get that towns? I said. He gave a sheepish kind of green. Well, he said. There is plenty of them about, aren't there? I count there more past than anything else, anyway. One rabbit more or less won't matter to him up at the house. It's not as if rabbits were game. I don't know nothing about that towns and I don't care nothing either. I won't have it. As you've got it, you'd better take it back to your wife. And if I find you getting any more, you'll get the sack as sure as my name's Steven Adam. All right, Mr. Adam, he said. That shall be as you say, of course. I thought perhaps rabbits not coming into your province, you wouldn't mind. Then I wanted to call round two to say how much obliged I am to you. What for? I said. About those melons. There was a holy row about it, wasn't there? I don't deny it. You told me yourself to shut those lights and I said I would. How I came to miss it, I can't think. Something or other must have got into my head. It's a pity towns that a bit of sense don't get into your head sometimes. Well, there it was, anyhow. We heard the governor laying into you about it, and not a word did you say about its being anybody's fault but your own. Of course the governor thinks a lot of you, and he'd put up with a thing in you which he'd give me the sack for right off. Still, I do take it as being very kind. You can hold your tongue, towns. I've got no kindness for such as you, wasting hours of skilled work by your damn wool gathering forgetfulness. The fact of the case is that I've got that child Hilda a bit on my mind at the time. The missus thought she was sickening for the measles. Well, she wasn't. What would it have matter if she had been? Oh, children have the measles, don't they? Do you think yours have got to be so bless superior? That's no excuse at all. As for the kindness, it was simply justice. If I choose to give an order to an idiot, then it's only fair that I should suffer for it. I don't know that I've forgotten much before, Mr. Adam. No, my boy, you haven't. And you'd better not forget much again if you want to keep your place. Just you let it be a lesson to you, and if you must be the father of six squalling brats, keep them out of your mind during work hours. The truth is, towns, that you think too much of those children of yours. I'm sure I don't know what they'll come to. You'll spoil them. Your own wife told me only the other day that you spoiled them. Towns gave that stupid grin of his again. Anyhow, he said, I don't go buying chocolates for them in the village. Well, I said, you can't get about your business. I want to read my paper, and I'm not one of those that sit up half the night. I wonder if Hilda told him about those sweets, or if he found her eating them and then guessed. He was a fool of a thing for me to do, and I shan't do it again. That's the way you lose your authority over the men under you by being a bit too familiar, and then, of course, they shirk their work and you get blamed for it. The governor was pretty civil today, and after all, I don't know as I want to change at my time of life. There is a lot of half-finished work about the place still, and some of it'll take a long time to get exactly to my liking. I can't make things out. We did a lot better than we expected, at the horticultural, and the governor behaved handsomely by me, as he always does. But he's not as cheerful as usual. I see him wondering about the garden by myself, just as he'd got something on his mind. He sold his hunters, and I want to know what for. It's given out that he finds he's getting too old for it. Looks to me more like something in the cutting-down way. I had a word with the cook up at the house, and she's of the same way of thinking. It's not only the hunters. She says there is less order and less entertaining done, and one of the maids has been turned off. If he's lost money, I wonder how he's lost it. It's not betting or gambling, for he was never that sort. I should say it was some investment gone wrong. I'm glad I took my father's advice there, and put my savings into councils. It may not bring in much, but the money's always there. The fact of the case is that this gentlefolk never ought to touch business at all. There are plenty of solicitors and such to look after it for them. A gentleman isn't meant to do anything except amuse himself, and when he interferes with other things, he's going out of his station in life and acting foolishly. This is particularly the case when a gentleman tries to talk, as if he knew anything about gardening. I was looking around the place today. And I should be sorry to leave it. In fact, I doubt if I should be able to make myself comfortable anywhere else. Three weeks ago, when there was the row about the melons, I did think of going. But that was a feat of temper, and with me, a feat of temper soon over. I believe I'd sooner work for half the wages than go. And if the governor says anything to me about cutting down, I don't know as I shunned him that something of the kind. He's cut down in the stable in the house, and it won't surprise me if the garden has the next turn. I may be wrong. He's always very keen about his garden, and I fancy he does soon spend money on that as anything. Had to give that full towns a bit of the rough side of my tongue. I found one of his children, the one they called Hilda, up on Sunley Hill as they've got measles in those cottages there, as he well knows. Of course, he had to make his excuse. He couldn't always be looking after them, and there were such a lot of them, and he knew his misses was hard at it all day. That last part's true. I had to promise that child Hilda something if she wouldn't go Sunley Hill way anymore, but it's all against my better judgment. What I ought to have done was to have given her a good dressing down and frighten her a bit. Seems a queer thing that a man who knows how to handle men and keep them in their place shouldn't know how to treat a child. All I can say is that it's the last time I shall make that mistake. Otherwise, I don't know that I can say much against towns. He's at his work smart and early every morning, which is what I like, and he doesn't loiter about. I hate a man who stands like a statue, with one foot on his spade when he thinks nobody's looking at him. What's more, he takes a real interest in his work. He's not an educated man as I am, and he's never had any advantages, but I will say for him that he's as willing to learn as anybody can want. In fact, I sometimes wonder if I'm not spoiling my own game by teaching him a bit too much. I must be on the lookout about that. It's just exactly what I thought. One of the town's kids has got the measles. It's the one they call Hilda. And that's a very stupid name to my mind to give to the daughter of a working gardener. Of course, towns is about half off his head, and that's a bad thing, for he never had too much sense at any time. I told him yesterday, as I've told him before, that all children have measles, and the sooner they have them, the sooner it's over, and the better it is every way. Then he says the child's rare bad, and the doctor wouldn't come twice a day if he didn't think so. As I told him, the doctor comes twice a day to make his bill a bit bigger. I suppose doctors are on the make, same as gardeners and everybody else. Why wasn't towns in any club? He says he shall be now. He's always shutting the stable door after he's lost the horse. That's the way things happen. I've been in a club for years and never had any occasion for a doctor at all. I looked in at the lodge yesterday to give Hilda what I had promised, having first of all found out that she had kept her word and had not been up to suddenly heal again. Otherwise, I shouldn't have gone in. As it was, it was of no use that she was too bad to eat what I brought, and was a bit light-headed. She didn't seem to recognize me, and, clearly enough, that was almost a kind of disappointment. I felt quite angry with the child, as she couldn't take what I'd promised, and I found there were one or two other little things that were wanted. I got them instead. I believe in acting fairly by everybody, even if it's only one of Tom's brats. I went in again today, and this time she knew me. That speaks for itself, and shows that she must be getting better. I've had the measles myself, or I wouldn't have taken the risk. Had to complain to Tom's today about his half-starving himself. He said that he had a good deal of expense lately, and money was a bit short, and he had to say where he could. I told him, as I've told him 20 times, not to act like a fool. If a man doesn't eat, he can't work. If a man is paid to work, and doesn't work, he's swindling his boss. As I'm here to see, amongst other things, that Tom's doesn't swindle the governor, I had to make some sort of an arrangement with him. I told him we'll settle about the interest later. Strictly speaking, I ought to make it pretty stiff, for Tom's isn't consuls by a long way. Now I'll go off for a stroll in my evening pipe. Possibly I may look in at the lodge. In that case, I think I'll leave the pipe till afterwards, as the child may not like it. The breadth of Tom's is better, ever so much better. In another week, she'll be about all over the place, and worrying the life out of me, same as usual. I did get a little pace, and quietness when she was ill. Tom's, of course, is as pleased as punch, but I very soon knocked that out of him. I asked him how he thought he was going to support his children, when they were a bit bigger on the wages that he got. I told him he was fit to be a head garner now, and asked him if he was content to be second all his life. He said, as things were at present, he didn't like to chuck a sure thing for what was only a chance. He's got no more enterprise than a dead dog. That's the curse of children. They hang around you like a dead weight, and you never get on at all. Thank heaven I've not on my own. I will say this for myself, that I can generally foresee what's going to happen. I'm not one of those that has to look at the newspaper to know what the weather's going to be. It was the stables first, and then it was the house. And I said it at the time it would be the garden next. The governor came along to me this morning with a sort of melancholy smile on his face, and talked to me just as openly and frankly, as if I'd been a gentleman like himself. Adam, he said, I've lost a lot of money lately, being swindled out of it. I dare say you heard. I'd heard nothing definite, sir. I'm sure I'm very sorry to hear it now. Well, he said, what I came to tell you is that you'll have to get along with one man less in the garden. I think Green will be the one to go. Well, sir, I said, I don't know if I might venture on a suggestion. What is it? I was going to say that Green's wages don't amount very much in the year, not as compared with mine. If I might suggest, I think you might do a lot worse than to let me go and make towns the headman here. With, say, a small rise, that'd save a lot of money, and I know you'd find town satisfactory. Does he know enough about it? To speak plainly, by this time, he knows as much about it as I do. He's one of the cleverest and smartest men I ever had under me, and he's a beggar to work as well. He's never done one single thing wrong since he's been here. What about yourself, Adam? I thought you were attached to the place. I didn't think you'd ever want to leave my service. No, sir, I've been very well suited here, but then you see, it all fits in. I could take a rather bigger place. Before I came here, I'd ten men under me, and I should feel quite comfortable if Towns was taking on the work, for he knows how things ought to be done. So it's all settled. Towns has got a green on him that would reach from here to London, and would keep on thanking me all day if I didn't tell him to shut his head and get on with his work. I may be leaving, but so long as I'm here, I'll see proper order kept. That kid of his, the one they call Hilda, isn't pleased at all. She says that if I go, she'll come with me. I wish to God she would. End of section 21, recording by Cornel Nemes, Reno Nevada. Section 22 of here and hereafter. 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 Cornel Nemes, Reno Nevada. Here and hereafter by Barry Payne, Descent. There was no one but myself in the smaller of the two smoking rooms when he entered. I had picked up an evening paper and was boring myself with it for a few minutes in front of the fire before going on to bore myself somewhere else. He walked rapidly to the fire and rang the bell and then turned abruptly to me. Hello, how are you? Didn't know you were here. Then he caught sight of the evening paper in my hands and asked me for God's sake to put that thing down. I put it down and asked him what was the matter. He was very pale and had just the appearance of a man whose nerves were suffering from over strain. I must tell you, he said abruptly, I'm glad I found you. It's the most perfectly. He stopped there because the waiter who answered the bell had just entered. He ordered some brandy and resumed the game. You will laugh your head off by the time I have finished my story. Gasly though it is, you won't believe a word of it. See here. He picked up the paper which I had thrown down, opened it rapidly and handed to me with his finger on one particular paragraph. The paragraph referred to an inquest on a somewhat commonplace suicide in Soho. The suicide, an Italian judging by his name, had flung himself from a window on the first floor and had broken his neck on the pavement. Evidence was given by those who knew him that he had been very queer in his matters of late and the usual verdict had been returned. Well, I said, it's God's mercy that I wasn't a witness at that inquest. What does it matter? I replied. I suppose you saw the accident. You're required to go and say that it doesn't hurt you. Nobody thinks any the worse of you. It may be a little tiresome, but there is nothing to bring you to this condition, even if you had really given evidence, which it seems you haven't. The waiter brought the brandy, he drank it, ordered another and continued more quietly. I'm afraid I have let the thing prey on my mind a little. I confess that I have had a shock. The story is not at all what you imagine. I did not witness the accident. It was only within the last two hours that I heard of it, but I know how it was that it happened. He paused. I selected another cigar, lit it, and said nothing. He continued. You know me well enough to know my interest in anything, which is a little out of the way. I will even run some slight risk to meet and talk with a man who is not as other men are, or better still, a woman who is not as other women are. I have a fancy for human curiosities. I should like to take a museum and collect them. Yes, I said, I know that. You will get yourself into trouble one of these days. He went on speaking. About a week ago I went down Wardour Street and saw an Italian looking in a shop window. I did not know that he was an Italian at that time. The national characteristics were not very strong more than him. He was quite well dressed, rather like a well-to-do young city man. His head was abnormal. The breath from the end of the eyebrow to the ear was enormous. His eyes were not of the same color. His skin was like parchment. He continually moved the tip of his nose. His nostrils opened and shut. He looked to me to be a very queer beast indeed. And I mean to talk to him. After a while he went into a restaurant. I waited 10 minutes and then went in after him. I sat down at the same table and by way of opening a conversation knocked over his glass of claret, breaking the glass. Then of course I apologized and ordered a waiter to replace it. He had once countermanded the order and turned to me saying in excellent English. Pray do not trouble I had quite finished with it. But I said you must let me your glass was untouched. Yes he said but I never drink it. I looked amazed. I could explain he had it but it is a little difficult to understand and it would bore you. The only things that I care about I replied are the things which are not ordinary and are a little difficult to understand. Unless you are a deep soul maniac triumphant over temptation. I fell to see why you should order wine which you have no intention of drinking. Your explanation is wrong he replied. I ordered the claret because I wanted to smell it. As he seemed to find that conclusive I observed that even that did not clear the thing. You must know he said a little impatiently that with some people the sense of different objects have curious results. The possibilities implied in the sense of smell are enormous. In most people they are undeveloped. In very few art they are all understood. The connection between a scent and the memory has been noticed. I have seen a woman who smelled wall flowers for the first time for 10 years burst into tears. The scent of odd cologne is supposed to be refreshing and that of ammonia to be vivifying and that of ether sickening. No scent possesses the very curious attraction for a human being that Valerian does for the lower animals. The whole art of obtaining a new sensation by the use of scents is absolutely unknown to most people. Most women divide scents vaguely into opaque and transparent. Most virtuous women prefer the transparent but that is really as far as they have gone. As for the effect of those scents which are not pleasant to anybody and therefore are generally called by an unpleasant name there seems to be no knowledge at all. I knew a case I said of a gardener who had to work in a hot house filled with lilies of the valley. He fainted away. My Italian friend took up the story and when he recovered consciousness he was angry and entreated to be put back again. Yes I said but how did you know it? Because I know the effect of different scents. I was more fascinated than ever and made him talk for a long time. Several times he seemed to be hesitating whether or not to tell me something and I urged him on. It came at last. He had got a secret. He had invented a scent and was assured of the marvelous power of it but not of a whole of its effects afterwards or immediate. This he was investigating and he added impressively it gives one an entirely new way of living. I wish I said that you were a poor man wanting money with which to carry on your experiments. If I offered to finance you perhaps you would let me witness some of them. I love nothing better than to see something new. I do not want any money he answered laughing. My workshop is near here and I will show it to you if you care to take the risk of coming. I will come I replied with pleasure. And we both walked out together. He took me up a side street and then up a precipitous staircase to the first floor of a dingy looking house. He had three large rooms there opening into one another. He made me wait in the first which was somewhat poorly finished as a library and he went through into the others. After about 10 minutes he came back and fetched me through the second room where a lot of things were cooking over tiny little spirit slam and into the third. The third was furnished as the first but he was much more luxurious. He opened a corner cupboard and took down an ordinary glass stopper bottle unlabeled and containing a colorless liquid. That is it he said smiling. That is what makes all things new. Of course by this time I knew he was cracked but I asked him how. After frequent inhalations of descent he said one loses all sense of limitations or conditions. One believes that one can walk straight through a brick wall or fly in the air or live in the year one or in the year two million or in any intervening year. One is sure that he can do anything which it occurs to him that he would like to do. One has a feeling of complete omnipotence and that means a feeling of complete happiness. No one conscious of a limitation can be completely happy. At present the effects are very transient but I may be able to improve upon that. One moment I said this end does not really remove limitations and conditions. Subjectively yes objectively no but that matters little. Nothing can be unreal to us at the time that we fully believe it to be real. It is because the effects are elusive that I now refrain from experimenting with myself unless there is someone in the room with me. It is a hard struggle to keep off it. Frankly I was very glad when you suggested that you should come here. Now watch me. He removed the stopper and for perhaps two minutes continued to inhale the perfume. Then he put the stopper back again in the bottle and set it down on the table by his sign. He did not change in appearance in the least. Half jokingly I asked him if he could now write stories like Mr. Rudyard Keepling. Better he said. Infinitely better they are nothing. I will show you one very short thing. He took paper, pen and ink and covered one sheet with feverish haste. Then he handed it to me with an air of triumph. He was absolute nonsense from beginning to end and absolutely incoherent. There were phrases in it which we had used in our conversation. Phrases which you might have seen in advertisements or hoardings. Two or three lines of the song which is very popular just now. The whole shrunk together anyhow. I looked over it. Capital I said and can you fly? Of course he got up and opened the window. I let him climb up on the ledge where a nervous man would certainly have fallen. I saved him only just in time and he was angry with me. As I told him unfortunately I was not able to fly and wished for his company. He sat down and talked rubbish about the thing which he said he could do for about five minutes. Then he stretched himself and yawn. It has passed off now, he said. I had a long argument with him but it was of no use. He would not give up the bottle and he would not promise to leave it alone in the future and he would not tell me what he called it. To irritate him I said that the whole thing was a fraud from beginning to end. The bottle contained water and nothing else. I picked it up, took a long sniff at it and went out. In the street a moment later I called the cab man and told him to drive to Downing Street. I wanted to show Lord Salisbury the means of destroying any nation. I had the power of destroying any nation and I wished to use it for the benefit of England. Long before the cab reached Downing Street I also stretched my arms and yawned and knew that the effect had gone off. I drove back to my chambers. Today I read of the suicide. He had tried to fly and he did it because I suggested it to him when he was in that state the other day. It was my fault, really. He picked up his second glass of brandy and began sipping it. He talked it over for a long time but he would not contradict himself or be shaken in any way. It is at any rate perfectly true that at the sale of the suicides property he made some large purchases. I found that out afterwards from the auctioneer. He's leaving abroad now. End of section 22. Recording by Cornel Nemesh, Reno, Nevada. End of here and hereafter by Barry Payne. I sat down at the same table and…