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

her

hands again to the typewriter, “that Reginald won’t realize how careful

I have to be of what my money is in. It’s a wonder I have any private

income at all. As it is, whenever I give a decision in a financial

case I expect to be left comparatively penniless in a month or two.”

 

“Does Mr. Montague want you to invest?” Miss Burnett asked.

 

“He wants me to give him five hundred, so far as I can understand,”

Lord

Arglay said, “to put in the best thing that ever was. What is the best

thing that ever was?”

 

Miss Burnett looked at her typewriter and offered no opinion.

 

“I suppose that I ought to think the Twelve Tables were,” the Chief

Justice went on, “officially - or the Code Napol�on - but they’re

rather specialist. And anyhow when you say ‘that ever was,’ do you

mean

that it’s stopped being? Or can it still be?… Miss Burnett,” he

added after a pause, “I was asking you a question.”

 

“I don’t know, Lord Arglay,” Chloe said patiently. “I never can answer

that sort of question. I suppose it depends on what you mean by ‘was.’

But oughtn’t we to get on with the rest of the chapter before lunch?”

 

Lord Arglay sighed and looked at his notes. “I suppose so, but I’d

much rather talk. Was there ever a best thing that ever was? Never

mind; you’re right as usual. Where were we? The judgement of Lord

Mansfield-” He began dictating.

 

There was, in fact, time for an hour’s work before Mr. Montague arrived

for lunch. Chloe Burnett had been engaged six months before by Lord

Arglay as general intellectual factotum when he had determined to begin

work on his Survey of Organic Law. When the Chief justice was at the

Courts she spent her time reducing to typed order whatever material

Lord Arglay left ready for her the night before. But during the

vacation, since he had remained in town, it had become a habit for them

to lunch together, and neither Chloe’s intention of withdrawing or Mr.

Montague’s obvious uneasiness caused Lord Arglay to break it.

 

“Of course you’ll lunch here,” he said to Chloe, and to Mr. Montague’s

private explanations that the matter in hand was very secret, “That’s

all right; two can spoil a secret but three make a conspiracy, which is

much safer.”

 

“And now,” he said to his nephew after they were settled, “what is it?

What do you want me to put my money in this time? I shan’t, of course,

but what’s it all about?”

 

“Well, it’s a kind of transport,” Reginald said. “It came to me

through Uncle Giles, who wanted me to help him in an experiment.”

 

“Was it a dangerous experiment?” Lord Arglay asked.

 

“No I don’t think dangerous,” Montague answered. “Unusual perhaps, but

not dangerous. When he came back from Baghdad this time he brought

with

him a funny kind of a thing, something… well, something like a

crown and something… something…”

 

“Something not,” said Lord Arglay. “Quite. Well?”

 

“Made of gold,” Reginald went on, “with a stone—that size… in the

middle. Well, so he asked me over to help him experiment, and there was

a man from the Persian Embassy there too, who said it was what Sir

Giles

thought it was—at least, he’d bought it as being—but that doesn’t

matter. Well now, this thing—I know you won’t believe it—it sounds so

silly; only you know I did it. Not Sir Giles—he said he wanted to

observe, but I did. The Persian fellow was rather upset about it, at

least not upset, but a bit high in the air, you know. Rather frosty.

But I’m bound to say he met us quite fairly, said he was perfectly

willing to admit that we had it, and to make it clear to us what it

was;

only he must have it back. But that would have been too silly.”

 

As Mr. Montague paused for a moment Lord Arglay looked at Chloe.

“It’s

a fact I’ve continually observed in the witness box,” he said

abstractedly, “that nine people out of ten, off their own subject, are

incapable of lucidity, whereas on their own subject they can be as

direct as a straight line before Einstein. I had a fellow once who

couldn’t put three words together sanely; we were all hopeless, till

counsel got him on his own business—which happened to be statistics of

the development of industry in the Central American Republics; and then

for about five minutes I understood exactly what had been happening

there for the last seventy years. Curious. You and I are either

silent or lucid. Yes, Reginald’ Never mind me, I’ve often been meaning

to tell Miss Burnett that, and it just came into my mind. Yes?”

 

“O he was lucid enough,” Reginald said. “Well it seems this thing was

supposed to be the crown of King Suleiman, but of course as to that I

can’t say. But I can tell you this.” He pointed a fork at the Chief

justice. “I put that thing on my head- ” Chloe gave a small gasp-“and I

willed myself to be back in my rooms in Rowland Street, and there I

was.” He stopped.

 

Lord Arglay and Chloe were both staring at him. “There!” he repeated.

“And then I willed myself back at Ealing, and there I was.”

 

Chloe went on staring. Lord Arglay frowned a little. “What

do you mean?” he said, with a sound of the Chief Justice in his voice.

 

“I mean that I just was,” Reginald said victoriously. “I don’t know

how I got there. I felt a little dizzy at the time, and I had a

headache of sorts afterwards. But without any kind of doubt I was one

minute in Ealing and the next in Rowland Street, one minute in Rowland

Street and the next in Ealing.”

 

The two listeners looked at each other, and were silent for two or

three minutes. Reginald leaned back and waited for more.

 

Lord Arglay said at last, “I won’t ask you if you were drunk, Reginald,

because I don’t think you’d tell me this extraordinary story if you

were drunk then unless you were drunk now, which you seem not to be. I

wonder what exactly it was that Giles did. Sir Giles Tumulty, Miss

Burnett, is one of the most cantankerously crooked birds I have

ever known. He is, unfortunately, my remote brother-in-law; his brother

was Reginald’s mother’s second husband—you know the kind of riddle-me-ree relationship. He’s obscurely connected with diabolism in two

continents; he has written a classic work on the ritual of Priapus; he

is the first authority in the world on certain subjects, and the first

authority in hell on one or two more. Yet he never seems to do anything

himself, he’s always in the background as an interested observer. I

wonder what exactly it was that he did and still more I wonder why he

did it.”

 

“But he didn’t do anything,” Reginald said indignantly. “He just sat

and watched.”

 

“Of two explanations,” Lord Arglay said, “other things being equal,

one should prefer that most consonant with normal human experience.

That Giles should play some sort of trick on you is consonant with

human

experience; that you should fly through the air in ten minutes is not—at least it doesn’t seem so to me. What do you think, Miss Burnett?”

 

“I don’t seem to believe it somehow,” Chloe said. “Did you say it was

the Crown of Suleiman, Mr. Montague? I thought he went on a carpet.”

 

Lord Arglay stopped a cigarette half way to his lips. “Eh” he said. “

What a treasure you are as a secretary, Miss Burnett! So he did, I

seem to remember. You’re sure it wasn’t a carpet, Reginald?”

 

“Of course I’m sure,” Reginald said irritably. “Should I mistake a

carpet for a crown? And I never knew that Suleiman had either

particularly.”

 

Lord Arglay, pursuing his own thoughts, shook his head. “It would be

like Giles to have the details right, you know,” he said. “If there

was

a king who travelled so, that would be the king Giles would bring out

for whatever his wishes might be. Look here, Reginald, what did he

want you to do?”

 

“Nothing,” Reginald answered. “But the point is this.” Confirming

the Chief Justice’s previous dictum he became suddenly lucid. “The

Persian man told us that small fractions taken from the Stone—it’s the

Stone in the Crown that does it—have the same power. Now, if that’s

so,

we can have circlets made—with a chip in each, and just think what any

man with money would give to have a thing like that. Think of a fellow

in Throgmorton Street being able to be in Wall Street in two seconds!

Think of Foreign Secretaries! Think of the Secret Service! Think of

war!

Every Government will need them. And we have the monopoly. It means a

colossal fortune—colossal. O uncle, you must come in. I want a

thousand: I can get six hundred or so quietly—not a word must leak out

or I could do more, of course. Give me five hundred and I’ll get you

fifty thousand times five hundred back.”

 

Lord Arglay disregarded this appeal. “Did you say the other man

belonged to the Persian Embassy?” he asked. “What did he want anyway?”

 

“He wanted it back,” Reginald said. “Some sort of religious idea, I

fancy. But really Sir Giles only needed him in order to make sure it

was authentic.”

 

“If Giles thought it was authentic,” Lord Arglay said, “I’( bet any

money he wanted to tantalize him with it. If there was an it, which of

course I don’t believe.”

 

“But I saw it, I touched it, I used it,” Reginald cried out lyrically.

“I tell you, I did it.”

 

“I know you do,” the ChiefJjustice answered, “And though I shan’t give

you the money I’m bound to say I feel extremely curious.” He got up

slowly. “I think,” he said, “the telephone Excuse me a few minutes. I

want to try and catch Giles if he’s in.”

 

When he had gone out of the room a sudden consciousness of their

respective positions fell on the other two. Reginal, Montague became

acutely aware that he had been revealing an immense and incredible

secret to a girl in his uncle’s employment. Chloe became angrily

conscious that she could not interrogate this young man as she would

have done her own friends. This annoyed her the more because, compared

with Lord Arglay’s learning and amused observation, she knew him to be

trivial and greedy. But she, though certain of greater affection for

the Chief Justice than he had, was a servant and he a relation. She

thought of the phrase again-“the Crown of Suleiman.” The crown of

Suleiman an Reginald Montague!

 

“Sounds awfully funny, doesn’t it, Miss Burnett?” Mr. Montague asked,

coming carefully down to her level.

 

“Lord Arglay seemed to think Sir Giles was having a joke with you,” she

answered coldly. “A kind of mesmerism,

perhaps.”

 

“O that’s just my uncle’s way,” Reginald said sharply. “He likes to

pull my leg a bit.”

 

“So Lord Arglay seemed to think,” Chloe said.

 

“No, I mean Lord Arglay,” Reginald said more irritably than before.

 

“You mean Lord Arglay really believes it all?” Chloe said, surprised.

“O do you think so, Mr. Montague?”

 

“Lord Arglay and I understand one another,” Reginald threw over

carelessly.

 

“One another?” Chloe said. “Both of you? But how splendid! He’s such

an able man, isn’t he? It must be wonderful to understand him so well.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “Of course I don’t know what to think.”