The Beetle, Richard Marsh [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

his fingertips together, inclined his head, in a fashion which was peculiarly Oriental, but not particularly explanatory⁠—so I repeated my question.

“Do you wish me to understand that you do come from Miss Lindon?”

Again he slipped his hand into his burnoose, again he produced a slip of paper, again he laid it on the shelf, again I glanced at it, again nothing was written on it but a name⁠—“Paul Lessingham.”

“Well?⁠—I see⁠—Paul Lessingham.⁠—What then?”

“She is good⁠—he is bad⁠—is it not so?”

He touched first one scrap of paper, then the other. I stared.

“Pray how do you happen to know?”

“He shall never have her⁠—eh?”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Ah!⁠—what do I mean!”

“Precisely, what do you mean? And also, and at the same time, who the devil are you?”

“It is as a friend I come to you.”

“Then in that case you may go; I happen to be overstocked in that line just now.”

“Not with the kind of friend I am!”

“The saints forefend!”

“You love her⁠—you love Miss Lindon! Can you bear to think of him in her arms?”

I took off my mask⁠—feeling that the occasion required it. As I did so he brushed aside the hanging folds of the hood of his burnoose, so that I saw more of his face. I was immediately conscious that in his eyes there was, in an especial degree, what, for want of a better term, one may call the mesmeric quality. That his was one of those morbid organisations which are oftener found, thank goodness, in the east than in the west, and which are apt to exercise an uncanny influence over the weak and the foolish folk with whom they come in contact⁠—the kind of creature for whom it is always just as well to keep a seasoned rope close handy. I was, also, conscious that he was taking advantage of the removal of my mask to try his strength on me⁠—than which he could not have found a tougher job. The sensitive something which is found in the hypnotic subject happens, in me, to be wholly absent.

“I see you are a mesmerist.”

He started.

“I am nothing⁠—a shadow!”

“And I’m a scientist. I should like, with your permission⁠—or without it!⁠—to try an experiment or two on you.”

He moved further back. There came a gleam into his eyes which suggested that he possessed his hideous power to an unusual degree⁠—that, in the estimation of his own people, he was qualified to take his standing as a regular devil-doctor.

“We will try experiments together, you and I⁠—on Paul Lessingham.”

“Why on him?”

“You do not know?”

“I do not.”

“Why do you lie to me?”

“I don’t lie to you⁠—I haven’t the faintest notion what is the nature of your interest in Mr. Lessingham.”

“My interest?⁠—that is another thing; it is your interest of which we are speaking.”

“Pardon me⁠—it is yours.”

“Listen! you love her⁠—and he! But at a word from you he shall not have her⁠—never! It is I who say it⁠—I!”

“And, once more, sir, who are you?”

“I am of the children of Isis!”

“Is that so?⁠—It occurs to me that you have made a slight mistake⁠—this is London, not a dog-hole in the desert.”

“Do I not know?⁠—what does it matter?⁠—you shall see! There will come a time when you will want me⁠—you will find that you cannot bear to think of him in her arms⁠—her whom you love! You will call to me, and I shall come, and of Paul Lessingham there shall be an end.”

While I was wondering whether he was really as mad as he sounded, or whether he was some impudent charlatan who had an axe of his own to grind, and thought that he had found in me a grindstone, he had vanished from the room. I moved after him.

“Hang it all!⁠—stop!” I cried.

He must have made pretty good travelling, because, before I had a foot in the hall, I heard the front door slam, and, when I reached the street, intent on calling him back, neither to the right nor to the left was there a sign of him to be seen.

XIII The Picture

“I wonder what that nice-looking beggar really means, and who he happens to be?” That was what I said to myself when I returned to the laboratory. “If it is true that, now and again, Providence does write a man’s character on his face, then there can’t be the slightest shred of a doubt that a curious one’s been written on his. I wonder what his connection has been with the Apostle⁠—or if it’s only part of his game of bluff.”

I strode up and down⁠—for the moment my interest in the experiments I was conducting had waned.

“If it was all bluff I never saw a better piece of acting⁠—and yet what sort of finger can such a precisian as St. Paul have in such a pie? The fellow seemed to squirm at the mere mention of the rising-hope-of-the-Radicals’ name. Can the objection be political? Let me consider⁠—what has Lessingham done which could offend the religious or patriotic susceptibilities of the most fanatical of Orientals? Politically, I can recall nothing. Foreign affairs, as a rule, he has carefully eschewed. If he has offended⁠—and if he hasn’t the seeming was uncommonly good!⁠—the cause will have to be sought upon some other track. But, then, what track?”

The more I strove to puzzle it out, the greater the puzzlement grew.

“Absurd!⁠—The rascal has had no more connection with St. Paul than St. Peter. The probability is that he’s a crackpot; and if he isn’t, he has some little game on foot⁠—in close association with the hunt of the oof-bird!⁠—which he tried to work off on me, but couldn’t. As for⁠—for Marjorie⁠—my Marjorie!⁠—only she isn’t mine, confound it!⁠—if I had had my senses about me, I should have broken his head in several places for daring to allow her name to pass his lips⁠—the unbaptised Mohammedan!⁠—Now to return to the chase of splendid murder!”

I snatched up my mask⁠—one of the most ingenious inventions, by the way, of recent years; if the armies of the future wear my