i set out wearing rubber shoes and armed with a loaded revolver. this i concealed in my breast pocket. i timed myself so nicely that i arrived at sir robert ottley's mansion on the fifth stroke of twelve. forthwith i mounted the steps and softly tried the door. it was ajar. i pushed it back and entered, closing it noiselessly behind me. i locked it, too. the hall was unlighted and black as erebus. i stood for a moment or two listening breathlessly. then i thought i heard a sigh. "may!" i whispered.
i was answered by a sibilant soft "s-sh!" then a hand was laid upon my sleeve and i felt myself drawn forward. i gave myself up to be guided the more willingly that i hardly knew the place. we came to a staircase. my guide breathed "s-sh" again, and muttered "stairs." we climbed them step by step. heavens, how dark it was! afterwards i was drawn like a shadow through a maze of thickly carpeted corridors. finally, we stopped. the hand left my arm and i heard a door creak open. "come!" whispered my guide. i stepped towards a dim, dim glow, and as i crossed the[pg 227] threshold, the door, shutting on my entrance, grazed my arm.
"at last!" the voice whispered.
it was a signal. hardly was it uttered than a blaze of white light stabbed the darkness. i found myself in an immense apartment, blinking foolishly into the muzzle of a revolver presented at my forehead by dr. belleville. our eyes met presently across the sights. his were smiling coldly.
"an excellent disguise, dr. pinsent; my sincere congratulations," he observed. "it is evident you have obeyed my instructions to the letter."
"your instructions," i said.
"ay. mine."
"then you——"
"the cipher was my idea entirely. ah! but you must not blame miss ottley. she signed the first letter without understanding. later, however, she would not write. she knew. i was obliged to use the typewriter, and in order to convince you of the authenticity of the letter i threw at your feet last thursday night—my emissary followed you home and pretended to wish to wrest it from you. you fell into the snare. and now you are here, and no one knows, eh? no one knows?"
"you think so?" i asked. i was beginning to get back my wits.
but he only laughed. "it does not matter. the great thing is, you are here and in my power. that was all i wanted. now, ottley! now!"
[pg 228]
it was another signal. something hard and heavy crashed against my skull. for a second i fought for breath against a horrible feeling of sickness and impotence, then came blank night and nothingness. i had been sandbagged.
i recovered to find that my captors had strapped me hand and foot in a huge iron chair. i could not move an inch in any one direction, but otherwise my situation was tolerably comfortable. belleville sat facing me some feet away. he was plucking thoughtfully at his big, black beard. there was no one else in the room. perceiving i was awake, he arose and took from a table near him a glass of water, which he brought to me.
"it is not poisoned," he remarked. "i have considerable need of you for some time yet." he placed the glass to my lips then, and i drank with confidence. i felt better afterwards, but my head ached bravely still.
belleville resumed his chair and again began to pluck at his beard. "no doubt your head aches," he observed. "i regret having been obliged to use you so discourteously, but we have had so much experience of your muscular vigour that to have risked a physical encounter would have been absurd. we might have been forced to kill you, and that would not have suited my plans."
"indeed," said i. it cost me a painful effort to speak at all.
"i desire to be perfectly candid with you," said[pg 229] belleville. "but before we get down to business it were as well to prove to you how completely at my mercy you are." he took, as he spoke, a revolver from his pocket and aimed carelessly at the opposite wall. "this apartment used to be a shooting gallery," he observed. "all the walls are padded." he then discharged the weapon six times in rapid succession. the bullets spattered on a plate of steel. the sound of the reports was simply deafening. a full minute passed before the echoes and reverberations ceased. all the while belleville smiled at me. "no one heard but you and i," he said. "the futility, therefore, of wasting your breath in shouting for help will appeal to you."
i glanced about and found that all the walls i could see were windowless. the room was lighted by electricity. the door was thickly coated with padded cushioned leather. the floor was carpeted with one vast sheet of rubber. the place was fitted up as a chemical laboratory. i counted half a dozen glass tables littered with retorts and dynamos, testing tubes and other instruments. there were big glass cases filled with porcelain boxes and phials of drugs and large jars containing acids. and finally there was one object my eyes rested on with a little shock of recognition. this was the sarcophagus of ptahmes. it was raised about three feet from the ground upon two steel trestles. the great sculptured lid was propped on end against a neighbouring wall. but although the coffin was[pg 230] open i could not see within it because the edge was almost on a level with my eyes.
"are you satisfied?" asked belleville presently. he had followed the direction of my glances with a sort of half-contemptuous, half-amused curiosity, reloading his revolver the while. the man evidently cherished an immense opinion of himself—but he was as cautious as a sage: witness the reloading of his weapon—despite the fact that i was as helpless as a trussed fowl.
"yes. i am satisfied," i answered.
"and cool? what i mean is are you perfectly collected? do you feel able to engage in conversation? or are you too dazed—or perhaps too angry?"
"i can promise at least to listen and try to understand you."
he gave me a sardonic smile. "the under dog is a fool to be sarcastic," he said drily. "however, please yourself. listen then! you are no doubt aware that it is one of my ambitions to marry miss ottley?"
"yes."
"captain weldon stood some time since in my road."
"yes."
"peace to his ashes," smiled the doctor. then he frowned. "but to my astonishment i now find that the lady did not care for the gallant captain."
"indeed."
[pg 231]
"indeed and indeed." belleville bit his lip. "but for you," he snarled.
i was silent.
"it is almost incredible, but it is true."
"she has confided in you?" i asked.
"as a preliminary step to defying me," replied belleville. "it was rather silly of her, but perhaps she could not help herself. women, even the wisest, are slaves to their emotions of the moment. i was willing to make all sorts of concessions, too. i even offered her your life."
"my life."
"i offered to permit you to live if she would marry me."
"and she?"
belleville bared his teeth just as i have seen a jackal grin. "you know how women love to glorify the objects of their admiration," he said slowly. "in their opinion the men they—they love—are always the wisest, the strongest, the most astute and the best. i am free to admit, my dear pinsent, that you are by no means a fool. you have no doubt a fairly keen intelligence—but miss ottley has placed you on an alabaster pedestal—pedestal do i say? a pinnacle! she has actually ventured to contrast your ability with mine to my disparagement. she rejected my offer with disdain and challenged me to measure wits with you. and when i accepted the challenge she calmly predicted that you would defeat and destroy me. it thus became[pg 232] my duty to show her how mistaken and fallible in truth is her estimate of me. weldon's death taught her nothing, absolutely nothing. she protested that if i was really the deus ex machina it only proved me to be an ordinary sort of heartless murderer. weldon's particular order of intellect never impressed her, it appears. but yours, in her eyes, is little short of divine. there was no help then but to dispose of you in such a way as to open her eyes. it is no boast to say that i could have killed you at any time of the day or night i pleased for weeks past. had i done so, however, i should have been constrained so to arrange matters—as in weldon's case—as to make your end appear natural; and i'm afraid miss ottley would on that account have been inclined to consider, for a second time, me a lucky prophet and you the second victim of an inscrutable providence. that is her present attitude toward weldon's final exit from the stage of life. i was obliged then so to arrange matters as to get you into my power, but, bien entendu, without the fanfare of trumpets. i flatter myself that i have managed very well. you may pretend the contrary if you choose, but you'll not convince me. i have had your every movement carefully followed, and i believe that outside of this house there is not a soul in england of your acquaintance who has a doubt but that you are on your way to egypt. and i have neglected no precautions that could ever give rise to such a doubt. immediately you quitted your[pg 233] lodgings in soho this evening, my emissary entered your room by means of a master key and brought away your trunks. no one saw him, for he was invisible; and no one saw your trunks depart, for he made them invisible, too. they are at this moment in this house. you doubt me?"
"yes," i cried. "i doubt you; produce them!"
"i am too comfortable to move," smiled belleville. "but here is something i found at the bottom of one of them."
as he spoke he took from his breast pocket the mummy hand poor weldon had given me. i could not suppress an exclamation. he had spoken truly then. belleville tossed the hand upon a table. "i was rather glad to get it back," he said. "not that it really mattered; but i wondered who had found it. did weldon still cling to it after he was dead?"
"you scoundrel!" i cried. "it was you—really then? you pushed him over the platform?"
he laughed. "in person, no, but by direction, yes." then he became serious. "but let us avoid personalities, if you please. we each possess an ugly temper, i believe; and mine is sometimes uncontrollable. do you agree?"
"proceed!" said i.
he bowed ironically. "there is but little more to tell you now. you know almost all you need to know, and enough, i feel sure, to enable you to anticipate your fate."
[pg 234]
"you intend to murder me, i suppose?"
"exactly. but it depends on yourself whether you shall have a painless death or no. if you will do what i require you shall have the choice between aconite and morphia. if you refuse, well,"—he pursed up his lips—"you'll live longer, pinsent; yes, you'll live longer—but frankly, old chap, you won't like it. i hate you, you know, and i am a surgeon, and you are there and i am here; i repeat, i hate you. and i am not only a surgeon, i am a skilful surgeon. i am, besides, a vivisectionist. that is one of my hobbies. and i'll keep you alive as long as possible. for let me yet again assure you i hate—you—hate you, hate you!"
there was no doubt of it. he hated me. the emotion was infectious. i hated him. i had before; but i now realised how much. after one long glance into his gloating eyes i lowered mine and asked in a voice i strove to render civil: "what is it you want me to do for you?"
"i want you to play the part of a friendly disembodied ghostly match-maker."
"i fail to understand you."
"naturally. but listen. i intend to render you invisible. when that is done i shall bring miss ottley here. she knows your voice. you will speak to her. do you see daylight now?"
"i begin."
"that is well. you will inform the lady that you are dead, but that your spirit is held in durance[pg 235] vile at my command. like all other women, she is at heart deeply superstitious. she will believe what you say and she will conceive a prodigious respect for my power and ability. you will assure her that i control your fate and that you can only obtain deliverance from unimaginably awful tortures at the price of her consenting to become immediately my wife. well?"
"a pretty plot," said i.
"i felt certain it would earn your admiration," he returned.
"i marvel at your candour!"
"my dear pinsent," he said, smiling, "complete candour is the privilege of the all-powerful, and that am i—at least in your regard. i can perfectly afford to be perfectly frank with you, because i can compel you to serve me even should you decide to disobey me."
"indeed, and how?"
"the thing is as simple as a, b, c. if you are so foolish as to refuse to play the part i have assigned, i shall render you three parts—instead of entirely invisible. i shall make your bonds, however, entirely invisible. you will then be put to certain electrical tortures of my invention, and i shall invite miss ottley to observe the spectacle of a soul in pain. i confess i should prefer you to behave like a sensible ghost and talk to her in the manner i have indicated; but you must admit that in the alternative she will, nevertheless, be forced to[pg 236] a conclusion flattering alike to my ambition and my pride."
"is it possible that you are all the heartless scoundrel you pretend? can you really find pleasure in the notion of winning the woman you are presumed to love—by a trick so infamous and despicable?"
"yes, pinsent, yes."
"you must be animated by a devil."
"on the contrary, my dear enemy, i am just an ordinary human being who has been seduced by the most extraordinary temptation that has ever been offered to a living being. a power has been placed at my disposal which puts me on a level with the immortal gods of ancient greece. in deciding to make use of it, i have adopted their ideas of morality, almost, as it were, perforce. i now make a cult of my convenience, and a religion of the indulgence of my instincts. i intend henceforth to kill always what i hate, to possess what i love, to seize what i covet, and to enjoy what i desire. miss ottley dislikes and despises me. that has irritated my vanity to such an extent that it is necessary to my happiness that i should convert her dislike into subjection, her contempt into the unbounded reverence of fear. when she becomes my wife i shall be the master of her millions—her father is on the point of dissolution—and i shall be the tyrant of her person. i shall rule her with a rod of iron terror. that[pg 237] domination will give me a far greater joy than the vulgar pleasure of reciprocated passion. and not the least part of it will dwell in the reflection that you, my dear enemy, will have so largely and so unwillingly contributed to the gratification of my sweet will. now you have all the facts before you. my cards are all exposed. it is for you to make up your mind what you will do. don't decide immediately! there is no hurry. think the matter over. as i am rather weary" (he yawned in my face), "i shall now leave you to your meditations till the morning. good-night."
he rose, bowed to me with mock politeness and moved over to the door. a moment later he had gone, and with him the light vanished. i was left in the profoundest darkness, and my thoughts were nearly as colourless and sombre as the gloom in which i sat.
