Part 2

It seems Mr. Jenkyn remained entangled a moment in the cloth, eyes closed, breath coming in gasps, for when he got clear and straightened up again, staring once more at his customer over the top of the camera, he stared for the second time at--no one. And the cap that he held in his left hand he clapped feverishly over the uncovered lens. Mr. Jenkyn staggered ... looked hurriedly round the empty studio, then ran, knocking a chair over as he went, into the passage. The hall was deserted, the front door closed. His visitor had disappeared “almost as though he hadn’t never been there at all”--thus he described it to himself in a terrified whisper. And again he felt the hair rise on his scalp; his skin crawled a little, and something put back the ice against his spine.

After a moment he returned to the studio and somewhat feverishly examined it. There stood the chair against the dingy background of trees; and there, close beside it, was the round table with the flower vase. Less than a minute ago Mr. Thomas Wilson, looking like death, had been sitting in that very chair. “It wasn’t _all_ a sort of dreamin’, then,” ran through his disordered and frightened mind. “I did see something ...!” He remembered vaguely stories he had read in the newspapers, stories of queer warnings that saved people from disasters, apparitions, faces seen in dream, and so forth. “Maybe,” he thought with confusion, “something’s going to ’appen to _me_!” Further than that he could not get for some little time, as he stood there staring about him, almost expecting that Mr. Wilson might reappear as strangely as he had disappeared. He went over the whole scene again and again, reconstructing it in minutest detail. And only then, for the first time, did he plainly realise two things which somehow or other he had not thought strange before, but now thought very strange. For his visitor, he remembered, had not uttered a single word, nor had he, Mr. Jenkyn, once touched his person.... And, thereupon, without more ado, he put on his hat and coat and went round to the little shop in the main street to buy some ink and stationery which he did not in the least require.

The shop seemed all as usual, though Mr. Wilson himself was not visible behind the littered desk. A tall gentleman was talking in low tones to the partner. Mr. Jenkyn bowed as he went in, then stood examining a case of cheap stylographic pens, waiting for the others to finish. It was impossible to avoid overhearing. Besides, the little shop had distinguished customers sometimes, he had heard, and this evidently was one of them. He only understood part of the conversation, but he remembers all of it. “Singular, yes, these last words of dying men,” the tall man was saying, “very singular. You remember Newman’s: ‘More light,’ wasn’t it?” The bookseller nodded. “Fine,” he said, “fine, that!” There was a pause. Mr. Jenkyn stooped lower over the pens. “This, too, was fine in its way,” the gentleman added, straightening up to go; “the old promise, you see, unfulfilled but not forgotten. Cropped up suddenly out of the delirium. Curious, very curious! A good, conscientious man to the last. In all the twenty years I’ve known him he never broke his word....”

A motor-bus drowned a sentence, and then was heard in the bookseller’s voice, as he moved towards the door: “...You see, he was half-way down the stairs before they found him, always repeating the same thing, ‘I promised the wife, I promised the wife.’ And it was a job, I’m told, getting him back again ... he struggled so. That’s what finished him so quick, I suppose. Fifteen minutes later he was gone, and his last words were always the same, ‘I promised the wife’....”

The tall man was gone, and Mr. Jenkyn forgot about his purchases. “When did it ’appen?” he heard himself asking in a voice he hardly recognised as his own. And the reply roared and thundered in his ears as he went down the street a minute later to his house: “Close on six o’clock--a few minutes before the hour. Been ill for weeks, yes. Caught him out of bed with high fever on his way to your place, Mr. Jenkyn, calling at the top of his voice that he’d forgotten to see you about his picture being taken. Yes, very sad, very sad indeed.”

But Mr. Jenkyn did not return to his studio. He left the light burning there all night. He went to the little room where he slept out, and next day gave the plate to be developed by his assistant. “Defective plate, sir,” was the report in due course; “shows nothing but a flash of light--uncommonly brilliant.” “Make a print of it all the same,” was the reply. Six months later, when he examined the plate and print, Mr. Jenkyn found that the singular streaks of light had disappeared from both. The uncommon brilliance had faded out completely as though it had never been there.

III

THE PRAYER

There was a glitter in the eye of O’Malley when they met. “I’ve got it!” he said under his breath, holding out a tiny phial with the ominous red label.

“Got what?” asked Jones, as though he didn’t know. Both were medical students; both of a speculative and adventurous turn of mind as well; the Irishman, however, ever the leader in mischief.

“The stuff!” was the reply. “The recipe the Hindu gave me. Your night’s free, isn’t it? Mine, too. We’ll try it. Eh?”

They eyed the little bottle with its shouting label--Poison. Jones took it up, fingered it, drew the cork, sniffed it. “Ugh!” he exclaimed, “it’s got an awful smell. Don’t think I could swallow that!”

“You don’t swallow it,” answered O’Malley impatiently. “You sniff it up through the nose--just a drop. It goes down the throat that way.”

“Irish swallowing, eh?” laughed Jones uneasily. “It looks wicked to me.” He played with the bottle, till the other snatched it away.

“Look out, man! Begad, there’s enough there to kill a Cabinet Minister, or a horse. It’s the real stuff, I tell you. I told him it was for a psychical experiment. You remember the talk we had that night----”

“Oh, I remember well enough. But it’s not worth while in my opinion. It will only make us sick.” He said it almost angrily. “Besides, we’ve got enough hallucinations in life already without inducing others----”

O’Malley glanced up quickly. “Nothing of the sort,” he snapped. “You’re backing out. You swore you’d try it with me if I got it. The effect----”

“Well, what is the effect?”

The Irishman looked keenly at him. He answered very low. Evidently he said something he really believed. There was gravity, almost solemnity, in his voice and manner.

“Opens the inner sight,” he whispered darkly. “Makes you sensitive to thoughts and thoughtforces.” He paused a moment, staring hard into the other’s eyes. “For instance,” he added slowly, earnestly, “if somebody’s thinking hard about _you_, I should twig it. See? I should _see_ the thought-stream getting at you--influencing you--making you do this and that. The air is full of loose and wandering thoughts from other minds. I should see these thoughts hovering about your mind like flies trying to settle. Understand? The cause of a sudden change of mood in a man, an inspiration, a helping thought--a temptation----!”

“Bosh!”

“Are you afraid?”

“No. But it’s a poisonous doctrine--that such experiments are worth while even if--if----”

But O’Malley knew his pal.... They took the prescribed dose together, laughing, scoffing, hoping. Then they went out to dine. “We must eat very little,” explained the Irishman. “The stomach must be comparatively empty. And drink nothing at all.”

“What a bore!” said Jones, who was always hungry, and usually thirsty. The prescribed hour passed between the taking of the dose and dinner. They felt nothing more than what Jones described as a “beastly uncomfortable sort of inner heat.”

* * * * *

Opposite them, at a table alone, sat a small man, over-dressed according to their standards, and wearing diamond rings. His face had a curious mixture of refinement and wickedness--like a man naturally sensitive whom circumstances, indulgence, or some special temptation had led astray. He did not notice their somewhat close attention because, in his turn, he was closely watching--somebody else. He ate and drank soberly, but drew his dinner out. The “somebody else” he watched, obviously enough, was a country couple, up probably for the festivities due to the presence of a foreign Potentate in town. They were bewildered by big London. They carried hand-bags. From time to time the old man fingered his breast-pocket. He looked about him nervously. The be-ringed man was kind to them, lent them his newspaper, passed the salt, gave them scraps of favoured, kind, and sympathetic conversation. He was very gentle with them.

“Feel anything yet?” asked O’Malley for the tenth time, noticing a curious, passing look on his companion’s face. “I don’t feel a blessed thing meself! I believe that chemist fooled me, gave me diluted stuff or something----” He stopped short, caught by the other’s eye. They had been dining very sparingly, much to the disgust of the waiter, who wanted their table for more remunerative customers.

“I do feel something, yes,” was the quiet reply. “Or, rather, I _see_ something. It’s odd; but I really do----”

“What? Out with it! Tell me!”

“A sort of wavy line of gold,” said Jones calmly, “gold and shining. And sometimes it’s white. It flits about that fellow’s head--that fellow over there.” He indicated the man with the rings. “Almost as if--it were trying to get into him----”

“Bosh!” said O’Malley, who was ever the last to believe in the success of his own experiments. “You swear it?”

The other’s face convinced him, and a thrill went down his Irish spine.

“Hush,” said Jones in a lower tone, “don’t shout. I see it right enough. It’s like a little wavy stream of light. It’s going all about his head and eyes. By gad, it’s lovely, though--it’s like a flower now, a floating blossom--and now a strip of thin soft gold. It’s got him! By George, I tell you, it’s got him----!”

“Got him?” echoed the Irishman, genuinely impressed.

“Got _into_ him, I meant. It’s disappeared--gone clean into his head. Look!”

O’Malley looked hard, but saw nothing. “Me boy!” he cried, “the stuff _was_ real. It’s working. Watch it. I do believe you’ve seen a thought--a thought from somebody else--a wandering thought. It’s got into his mind. It may affect his actions, movements, decisions. Good Lord! The stuff was not diluted, after all. You’ve seen a thought-force!” He was tremendously excited. Jones, however, was too absorbed in what he saw to feel excitement. Whether it was due to the drug or not, he knew he saw a real thing.

“Wonder if it’s a good one or a bad one!” whispered the Irishman. “Wonder what sort of mind it comes from! Where? How far away?” He wondered a number of things. He chattered below his breath like a dying gramophone. But his companion just sat, staring in rapt silence.

“What are _you_ doing here?” said a voice from the table behind them quietly. And O’Malley, turning--Jones was too preoccupied--recognised a plain-clothes detective whom he chanced to know from having been associated with him in a recent poisoning case.

“Nothing particular; just having dinner,” he answered. “And you?”

The detective made no secret of his object. “Watching the crowds for their own safety,” he said, “that’s all. London’s full of prey just now--all up from the country, with their bags in their hands, their money in their breast-pockets, and good-natured folks ready everywhere to help ’em, and help themselves at the same time.” He laughed, nodding towards the man with the rings. “All the crooks are on the job,” he added significantly. “There’s an old friend of ours. He doesn’t know _me_, but I know him right enough. He’s usually made up as a clergyman; and to-night he’s after that old couple at the nex’ table, or my name ain’t Joe Leary! Don’t stare, or he’ll notice.” He turned his head the other way.

O’Malley, however, was far too interested in hoping for a psychical experience of his own, and in watching the “alleged phenomena” of his companion, to feel much interest in a mere detective’s hunt for pickpockets. He turned towards his friend again. “What’s up now?” he asked, with his back to the detective; “see anything more?”

“It’s perfectly wonderful,” whispered Jones softly. “It’s out again. I can see the gold thread, all shining and alive, clean down in the man’s mind and heart, then out, then in again. It’s making him different--I swear it is. By George, it’s like a blessed chemical experiment. I can’t explain it as I see it, but he’s getting sort of bright within--golden like the thread.” Jones was wrought up, excited, moved. It was impossible to doubt his earnestness. He described a thing he really saw. O’Malley listened with envy and resentment.

“Blast it all!” he exclaimed. “I see nothing. I didn’t take enough!” And he drew the little phial out of his pocket.

“Look! He’s _changed_!” exclaimed Jones, interrupting the movement so suddenly that O’Malley dropped the phial and it smashed to atoms against the iron edge of the umbrella-stand. “His thought’s altered. He’s going out. The gold has spread all through him----!”

“By gosh!” put in O’Malley, so loud that people stared, “it’s helped him--made him a better man--turned him from evil. It’s that blessed wandering thought! Follow it, follow it! Quick!” And in the general confusion that came with the paying of bills, cleaning up the broken glass, and the rest, the “crook” slipped out into the crowd and was lost, the detective murmured something about “wonder what made him leave so good a trail!” and the Irishman filled in the pauses with hurried, nervous sentences--“Keep your eye on the line of gold! We’ll follow it! We’ll trace it to its source. Never mind the tip! Hurry, hurry! Don’t lose it!”

But Jones was already out, drawn by the power of his obvious conviction. They went into the street. Regardless of the blaze of lights and blur of shadows, the noise of traffic and the rush of the crowds, they followed what Jones described as the “line of wavy gold.”

“Don’t lose it! For Heaven’s sake, don’t lose it!” O’Malley cried, dodging with difficulty after the disappearing figure. “It’s a genuine thought-force from another mind. Follow it! Trace it! We’ll track it to its source--some noble thinker somewhere--some gracious woman--some exalted, golden source, at any rate!” He was wholly caught away now by the splendour of the experiment’s success. A thought that could make a criminal change his mind must issue from a radiant well of rare and purest thinking. He remembered the Hindu’s words: “You will see thoughts in colour--bad ones, lurid and streaked--good ones, sweet and shining, like a line of golden light--and if you follow, you may trace them to the mind that sent them out.”

“It goes so fast!” Jones called back, “I can hardly keep up. It’s in the air, just over the heads of the crowd. It leaves a trail like a meteor. Come on, come on!”

“Take a taxi,” shouted the Irishman. “It’ll escape us!” They laughed, and panted, dodged past the stream of people, crossed the street.

“Shut up!” answered Jones. “Don’t talk so much. I lose it when you talk. It’s in my mind. I really see it, but your chatter blurs it. Come on, come on!”

* * * * *

And so they came at last to the region of mean streets, where the traffic was less, the shadows deeper, the lights dim, streets that visiting Emperors do not change. No match-sellers, bootlace venders, or “dreadful shadows proffering toys,” blocked their way on the pavement edge, because here were none to buy.

“It’s changed from gold to white,” Jones whispered breathlessly. “It shines now--by gad, it shines--like a bit of escaped sunrise. And others have joined it. Can’t you see ’em? Why, they’re like a network. They’re rays--rays of glory. And--hullo!--I see where they come from now! It’s that house over there. Look, man, look! They’re streaming like a river of light out of that high window, that little attic window up there”--he pointed to a dingy house standing black against the murk of the sky. “They come out in a big stream, and then separate in all directions. It’s simply wonderful!”

O’Malley gasped and panted. He said nothing. Jones, the phlegmatic, heavy Jones, had got a real vision, whereas he who always imagined “visions” got nothing. He followed the lead. Jones, he understood, was taking his instinct where it led him. He would not interfere.

And the instinct led him to the door. They stopped dead, hesitating for the first time. “Better not go in, you know,” said O’Malley, breaking the decision he had just made. Jones looked up at him, slightly bewildered. “I’ve lost it,” he whispered, “lost the line----” A taxi-cab drew up with a rattling thunder just in front and a man got out, came up to the door and stood beside them. It was the crook.

For a second or two the three men eyed each other. Clearly the new arrival did not recognise them. “Pardon, gentlemen,” he said, pushing past to pull the bell. They saw his rings. The taxi boomed away down the little dark street that knew more of coal-carts than of motors. “You’re coming in?” the man asked, as the door opened and he stepped inside. O’Malley, usually so quick-witted, found no word to say, but Jones had a question ready. The Irishman never understood how he asked it, and got the answer, too, without giving offence. The instinct guided him in choice of words and tone and gesture--somehow or other. He asked who lived upstairs in the front attic room, and the man, as he quietly closed the door upon them, gave the information--“My father.”

And, for the rest, all they ever learnt--by a little diligent inquiry up and down the street, engineered by Jones--was that the old man, bedridden for a dozen years, was never seen, and that an occasional district-visitor, or such like, were his only callers. But they all agreed that he was good. “They do say he lies there praying day and night--jest praying for the world.” It was the grocer at the corner who told them that.

IV

STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF A BARONET

His intrinsic value before the Eternities was exceedingly small, but he possessed most things the world sets store by--presence, name, wealth--and, above all, that high opinion of himself which saves it the bother of a separate and troublesome valuation. Outside these possessions he owned nothing of permanent value, or that could decently claim to be worthy of immortality. The fact was he had never even experienced that expansion of self commonly known as generosity. No apology, however, is necessary for his amazing adventure, for these same Eternities who judged him have made their affidavit that it was They who stripped him bare and showed himself--to himself.

It all began with the receipt of that shattering letter from his solicitors. He read and re-read it in his comfortable first-class compartment as the express hurried him to town, exceedingly comfortable among his rugs and furs, exceedingly distressed and ill at ease in his mind. And in his private sitting-room of the big hotel that same evening Mr. Smirles, more odious even than his letter, informed him plainly that this new and unexpected claimant to his title and estates was likely to be exceedingly troublesome--“even dangerous, Sir Timothy! I am bound to say, since you ask me, that it might be wise to regard the future--er--with a different scale of vision than the one you have been accustomed to.”

Sir Timothy practically collapsed. Instinctively he perceived that the lawyer’s manner already held less respect: the reflection was a shock to his vain and fatuous personality. “After all, then, it wasn’t _me_ he worshipped, but my position, and so forth ...!” If this nonsense continued he would be no longer “Sir Timothy,” but simply “Mister” Puffe, poor, a nobody. He seemed to shrink in size as he gazed at himself in the mirror of the gorgeous, flamboyantly decorated room. “It’s too preposterous and absurd! There’s nothing in it! Why, the whole County would go to pieces without me!” He even thought of making his secretary draft a letter to the _Times_--a letter of violent, indignant protest.

He was a handsome, portly man, with a full-blown vanity justified by no single item of soul or mind; not unkind, so much as empty; created and kept alive by the small conventions and the ceaseless contemplation of himself, the withdrawal of which might be expected to leave him flat as a popped balloon.... Such a mass of pompous conceit obscured his vision that he only slowly took in the fact that his very existence was at stake. His thoughts rumbled on without direction, the sense of loss, however, dreadfully sharp and painful all the time, till at length he sought relief in something he could _really_ understand. He changed for dinner! He would dine in his sitting-room alone. And, meanwhile, he rang for the remainder of his voluminous luggage. But it was vastly annoying to his diminishing pride to discover that the gorgeous Head Porter (he remembered now having vaguely recognised him in the hall) was the same poor relation to whom he had denied help a year ago. The vicissitudes of life were indeed preposterous. He ought to have been protected from so ridiculous an encounter. For the moment, of course, he merely pretended not to see him--certainly he did not commend the excellently quick delivery of the luggage. And to praise the young fellow’s pluck never occurred to him for one single instant.

“The house valet, please,” he asked of the waiter who answered the bell soon afterwards--and then directed somewhat helplessly the unpacking of his emporium of exquisite clothes. “Yes, take everything out--everything,” he said in reply to the man’s question--rather an extraordinary, almost insolent question when he came to reflect upon it, surely: “Is it worth while, perhaps, sir ...?” It flashed across his dazed mind that the Head Porter had made the very same remark to his subordinate in the passage when he asked if “everything” was to come in. With a shrug of his gold-braided shoulders that poor relation had replied, “Seems hardly worth while, but they may as well all go in, yes.”

And, with the double rejoinder perplexingly in his mind, Sir Timothy turned sharply upon the valet.

But the thing he was going to say faded on his lips. The man, holding out in his arms a heap of clothes, suits and what not, seemed so much taller than before. Sir Timothy had looked down upon him a moment ago, whereas now their eyes stared level. It was passing strange.

“Will you want these, sir?”

“Not to-night, of course.”

“Want them at all, I meant, sir?”

Sir Timothy gasped. “Want them at all? Of course! What in the world are you talking about?”