Many Dimensions, Charles Williams [black authors fiction TXT] 📗

Chapter One

THE STONE

 

“Do you mean,” Sir Giles said, “that the thing never gets

smaller?”

 

“Never,” the Prince answered. “So much of its virtue has entered into

its outward form that whatever may happen to it there is no change.

From the beginning it was as it is now.”

 

“Then by God, sir,” Reginald Montague exclaimed, “you’ve got the

transport of the world in your hands.”

 

Neither of the two men made any answer. The Persian, sitting back in

his chair, and Sir Giles, sitting forward on the edge of his, were both

gazing at the thing which lay on the table. It was a circlet of old,

tarnished, and twisted gold, in the centre of which was set a cubical

stone measuring about half an inch every way, and having apparently

engraved on it certain Hebrew letters. Sir Giles picked it up, rather

cautiously, and concentrated his gaze on them. The motion awoke a

doubt

in Montague’s mind.

 

“But supposing you chipped one of the letters off?” he asked. “Aren’t

they awfully important? Wouldn’t that destroy the—the effect?”

 

“They are the letters of the Tetragrammaton,” the Persian said drily,

“if you call that important. But they are not engraved on the Stone;

they are in the centre—they are, in fact, the Stone.”

 

“O!” Mr. Montague said vaguely, and looked at his uncle Sir Giles, who

said nothing at all. This, after a few minutes, seemed to compel

Montague to a fresh attempt.

 

“You see, sir?” he said, leaning forward almost excitedly. “If what the

Prince says is true, and we’ve proved that it is, a child could use

it.”

 

“You are not, I suppose,” the Persian asked, “proposing to limit it to

children? A child could use it, but in adult hands it may be more

dangerous.”

 

“Dangerous be damned,” Montague said more excitedly than before, “It’s

a marvellous chance—it’s… it’s a miracle. The thing’s as simple as

pie. Circlets like this with the smallest fraction of the Stone in

each. We could ask what we liked for them—thousands of pounds each, if

we like. No trains, no tubes, no aeroplanes. Just the thing on your

forehead, a minute’s concentration, and whoosh!”

 

The Prince made a sudden violent movement, and then again a silence

fell.

 

It was late at night. The three were sitting in Sir Giles Tumulty’s

house at Ealing-Sir Giles himself, the traveller and archaeologist;

Reginald Montague, his nephew and a stockbroker; and the Prince Ali

Mirza Khan, First Secretary to the Persian Ambassador at the court of

St. James. At the gate of the house stood the Prince’s car; Montague

was

playing with a fountain-pen; all the useful tricks of modern

civilization were at hand. And on the table, as Sir Giles put it

slowly down, lay all that was left of the Crown of Suleiman ben Daood,

King in Jerusalem,

 

Sir Giles looked across at the Prince. “Can you move other people with

it, or is it like season-tickets?”

 

“I do not know,” the Persian said gravely. “Since the time of Suleiman

(may the Peace be upon him!) no one has sought to make profit from it.”

 

“Ha!” said Mr. Montague, surprised. “O come now, Prince!”

 

“Or if they have,” the Prince went on, “they and their names and all

that they did have utterly perished from the earth.”

 

“Ha!” said Mr. Montague again, a little blankly. “O well, we can see.

But you take my advice and get out of Rails. Look here, uncle, we want

to keep this thing quiet.”

 

“Eh?” Sir Giles said. “Quiet? No, I don’t particularly want to keep it

quiet. I want to talk to Palliser about it—after me he knows more about

these things than anyone. And I want to see Van Eilendorf—and perhaps

Cobham, though his nonsense about the double pillars at Baghdad was the

kind of tripe that nobody but a broken-down Houndsditch sewer-rat would

talk.”

 

The Prince stood up. “I have shown you and told you these things,” he

said, “because you knew too much already, and that you may see how very

precious is the Holy Thing which you have there. I ask you again to

restore it to the guardians from whom you stole it. I warn you that if

you do not-”

 

“I didn’t steal it,” Sir Giles broke in. “I bought it. Go and ask the

fellow who sold it to me.”

 

“Whether you stole by bribery or by force is no matter,” the Prince

went on. “You very well know that he who betrayed it to you broke the

trust of generations. I do not know what pleasure you find in it or

for

what you mean to use it, unless indeed you will make it a talisman for

travel. But however that may be, I warn you that it is dangerous to

all

men and especially dangerous to such unbelievers as you. There are

dangers within the Stone, and other dangers from those who were sworn

to guard the Stone. I offer you again as much money as you can desire

if you will return it.”

 

“O well, as to money,” Reginald Montague said, “of course my uncle will

have a royalty—a considerable royalty—on all sales and that’ll be a

nice

little bit in a few months. Yours isn’t a rich Government anyhow, is

it? How many millions do you owe us?”

 

The Prince took no notice. He was staring fiercely and eagerly at Sir

Giles, who put out his hand again and picked up the circlet.

 

“No,” he said, “no, I shan’t part with it. I want to experiment

a bit. The bastard asylum attendant who sold it to me-”

 

The Prince interrupted in a shaking voice. “Take care of your words,”

he said. “Outcast and accursed as that man now is, he comes of a great

and royal family. He shall writhe in hell for ever, but even there you

shall not be worthy to see his torment.”

 

“-said there was hardly anything it wouldn’t do,” Sir Giles finished.

“No, I shan’t ask Cobham. Palliser and I will try it first. It was

all perfectly legal, Prince, and all the Governments in the world can’t

make it anything else.”

 

“I do not think Governments will recover it,” the Prince said. “But

death is not a monopoly of Governments. If I had not sworn to my

uncle-”

 

“O it was your uncle, was it?” Sir Giles asked. “I wondered what it

was that made you coo so gently. I rather expected you to be more

active about it to-night.”

 

“You try me very hard,” the Prince uttered. “But I know the Stone will

destroy you at last.”

 

“Quite, quite,” Sir Giles said, standing up. “Well, thank you for

coming. If I could have pleased you, of course…. But I want to

know all about it first.”

 

The Prince looked at the letters in the Stone. “I think you will know

a great deal then,” he said, salaamed deeply to it, and without bowing

to the men turned and left the house.

 

Sir Giles went after him to the front door, though they exchanged no

more words, and, having watched him drive away returned to find his

nephew making hasty notes.

 

“I don’t see why we need a company,” he said. “Just you

and I, eh?”

 

“Why you?” Sir Giles asked. “What makes you think you’re going to have

anything to do with it?”

 

“Why, you told me,” Montague exclaimed. “You offered me a hand in the

game if I’d be about to-night when the Prince came in case he turned

nasty.”

 

“So I did,” his uncle answered. “Yes—well, on conditions. If there is

any money in it, I shall want some of it. Not as much as you do, but

some. It’s always useful, and I had to pay pretty high to get the

Stone. And I don’t want a fuss made about it—not yet.”

 

“That’s all right,” Montague said. “I was thinking it might be just as

well to have Uncle Christopher in with us.”

 

“Whatever for?” Sir Giles asked.

 

“Well… if there’s any legal trouble, you know,” Montague said

vaguely. “I mean—if it came to the Courts we might be glad—of course,

I don’t know if they could—but anyhow he’d probably notice it if I

began

to live on a million—and some of these swine will do anything if their

pockets are touched—all sorts of tricks they have—but a Chief Justice

is

a Chief Justice—that is, if you didn’t mind-”

 

“I don’t mind,” Sir Giles said. “Arglay’s got a flat-footed kind of

intellect; that’s why he’s Chief Justice, I expect. But for what it’s

worth, and if they did try any international law business. But they

can’t; there was nothing to prevent that fellow selling it to me if

he chose, nor me buying. I’ll get Palliser here as soon as I can. “

 

“I wonder how many we ought to make,” Montague said. “Shall we say a

dozen to start with? It can’t cost much to make a dozen bits of gold—need it be gold? Better, better. Better keep it in the same stuff—and

it looks more for the money. The money—why, we can ask a million for

each—for what’ll only cost a guinea or two….” He stopped, appalled

by the stupendous vision,

 

Then he went on anxiously, “The Prince did say a bit any size would

do, didn’t he? and that this fellow”-he pointed a finger at the Stone-”

would keep the same size? It means a patent, of course; so if anybody

else ever did get hold of the original they couldn’t use it. Millions

… Millions…. “

 

“Blast your filthy gasbag of a mouth!” Sir Giles said. “You’ve made me

forget to ask one thing. Does it work in time as well as space? We

must try, we must try.” He sat down, picked up the Crown, and sat

frowning at the Divine Letters.

 

“I don’t see what you mean,” Reginald said, arrested in his notetaking.

“Time? Go back, do you mean?”

 

He considered, then, “I shouldn’t think anyone would want to go back,”

he said.

 

“Forward then,” Sir Giles answered. “Wouldn’t you like to go forward

to the time when you’ve got your millions?”

 

Reginald gaped at him. “But… I shouldn’t have them,” he began

slowly, “unless… eh? O if I’m going to… then I should be able

to jump to when… but… I don’t see how I could get at them unless

I knew what account they were in. I shouldn’t be that me, should I…

or should I?”

 

As his