Thorne Guy
The Soul Stealer

CHAPTER XX
THOUGHTS OF ONE IN DURANCE

Once more the cell was only tenanted by the victim. Sir William had gone, the great door had clanked and clicked, and Guy Rathbone still lay upon his couch of torture.

The electric light still shone, as Gouldesbrough had forgotten to turn it off, or perhaps did not know that this was the invariable custom of his assistant when Rathbone was clanked and bolted down to his bed of vulcanite. It was the first visit that Sir William had paid to the living tomb to which he had consigned his rival.

Rathbone had laughed indeed, and his laugh was still echoing in the frenzied brain of the scientist as he mounted upwards to the light of day. But the laugh, though it had indeed been blithe and confident, had been a supreme effort of will, of faith and trust, was merely the echo and symbol of a momentary state which the tortured body and despairing mind could not sustain.

Rathbone could not move his head, fixed tight as it was in its collar. But two great tears rolled from the weakened and trembling eyelids down the gaunt, grey cheeks. The supreme ecstasy of belief and trust in the girl he loved, the hope of meeting her again in another world where time was not and where the period of waiting would be unfelt, passed away like a thing that falls through water. Once more a frightful emptiness and fear came down over him like a cloud falls.

From where his couch was placed, though he could not turn his head, he could see nearly the whole interior of his cell. There were the concrete walls, each cranny and depression of which he knew so well. There was the other, and scarcely less painful, bed upon which he slept, or tried to sleep at such times when exhausted nature mercifully banished the pain of his soul. It was not day when he slept, it was not night, for day and night are things of the world, the world with which he was never to have any more to do, and which he should never see again with material eyes.

There was the little table upon which was the last book they had let him have, a book brought to him in bitter mockery by Wilson Guest a child's picture book called "Reading without Tears." And he could see the network of ropes and india-rubber attachments which went up to the pulley in the roof, and which rendered him absolutely helpless by means of the mechanism outside the cell which was set in motion before his jailor entered.

There was hardly any need for these ingenious instruments any longer. The athlete was gaunt and wasted, his skin hung upon him in grey folds. The gold had faded out of his hair and it was nearly white. The firm and manly curve of the lips was broken and twisted. The whole mouth was puckered with pain and torture. It was almost a senile mouth now. Very little physical strength remained in the body – no, there was hardly any need for the pulley and ropes now, and soon there would be no need for them at all, until, perhaps, some other unhappy captive languished in the grip of these monsters.

His tired eyes gazed round the cell, and his thoughts were for a moment numbed into nothingness. There was just a piece of lead at the back of his brain, that was all. He was conscious of it being there, drowsily conscious, but no more than that.

Quite suddenly something seemed to start his mental lethargy, his brain resumed its functions instantaneously. There was a roaring in his ears like the sound of a wind, and he awoke to full consciousness and realization of what Sir William had told him, of the unutterable terror and frightfulness of his coming doom. All over his face, hands, and body, beads of perspiration started out in little jets. Then he felt as if a piece of ice were being slid smoothly down his spine – from the neck downwards. His hands opened and shut convulsively, gripping at nothing, and the soles of his feet, in their list slippers, became suddenly and strangely hot. The collar round his neck seemed to be throttling him, and his mouth opened, gasping for air.

Then that deep and hidden chamber was filled with a wail so mournful, melancholy and hopeless, so dismal and inhuman that the very concrete walls themselves might also have melted and dissolved away before the fire of such agony and the sound of such despair.

He knew the dark and more sinister reason of his captivity, he knew what they had made him and for what dreadful purpose.

Ah! It was a supreme revenge. They had stolen him from his love and they had stolen his very inmost soul from him. All the agonized prayers which had gone up to God like thin flames had been caught upon their way like tangible and material things, caught by the devilish power of one man, and thrown upon the wall for him to see and laugh over. All his passionate longing for Marjorie, all the messages he tried to frame and send her through the darkness and the walls of stone, all these had been but an amusement and a derision for the fiend whose slave he had become. And all his hatred, his deep cursings of his captor, all his futile half-formed plans for an escape were all known to the two men. And still worse, his very memories, his most sacred memories, had been taken from him and used as a theatre by William Gouldesbrough and Wilson Guest. He understood now the remarks that the assistant had sometimes made, the cruel and extraordinary knowledge he seemed to display of things that had happened in Rathbone's past. It was all quite plain, all terribly distinct.

And worst of all, the sacred moments when he had avowed his love for Marjorie, and she, that peerless maiden, had come to him in answer, these dear memories, which alone had kept his cooling mind from madness, were known and exulted over by these men. They had seen him kiss Marjorie; all the endearments of the lovers had passed before them like tableaux in a pantomime. Yes; this indeed was more than any brain could bear.

Rathbone knew now that he was going mad.

Of course, God never heard his prayers, they could not get up to God. Those beasts had caught them in a net and God never heard them. There had always been that one thought, even in the darkest hour – that thought that God knew and would come to his aid.

The face, the rigid face, worked and wrinkled horribly. Ripples of agony passed up and down it like the ripples upon the wind-blown surface of a pool. It was not human now any longer, and the curious and lovers of what is terrible may see such faces in the museum of the mad painter of pictures at Brussels.

Then, as a stone falls, consciousness flashed away, though the face still moved and wrinkled automatically.

Presently the door of the cell was unlocked, and Wilson Guest came in. He was rather drunk and rather angry also.

Sir William had come back from telling Rathbone the truth about what had been done to him and what they proposed to do. Guest had been waiting in the study with great expectation. He congratulated himself on having worked up his patron sufficiently to make him visit Rathbone himself and inform him of his fate. He had not thought that Gouldesbrough could have been brought to do any such thing, and he had awaited his chief's arrival with intense and cynical expectation.

When at last Sir William did enter the room, his face was very pale, but the passion of hideous anger had quite gone from it, and it was calm and quiet. The eyes no longer blazed, the lips were set in their usual curve.

"Have you told him, William?" Guest asked in his malicious voice. "Have you told him everything? Come along, then, let's go into the laboratory at once and see what he thinks about it."

There was no response. Sir William seemed as a man in a dream. When at length he did answer his voice appeared to come from a long distance, and it was sad and almost kindly.

"Yes," he said, in that gentle mournful voice; "yes, my friend, I have told him. Poor, poor fellow! How terrible his thoughts must be now. I wish I could do something for him. The spectacle of such agony is indeed terrible. Poor, poor fellow!"

He sank into a chair, his head fell upon his breast, his fingers interlocked, and he seemed to be sleeping.

Guest looked at him for a moment stupidly. The assistant was fuddled with drink, and could not understand these strange symptoms and phenomena of a great brain which was swiftly being undermined.

All he noticed was that Sir William certainly seemed sunk in upon himself like an old man.

With a gesture of impatience he left the room and traversed the corridor until he came to the largest laboratory, where the Thought Spectroscope instruments were. He turned up the electric light, found the switch which controlled part of the machinery, moved the switch and turned down the electric light once more, looking expectantly at the opposite wall. There was no great circle of light such as he waited for.

With an oath he stumbled out of the laboratory, not forgetting to lock it carefully. And then, unlocking another door, a door which formed the back of a great cupboard in No. C room, a door which nobody ever saw, he went down a flight of stone steps to those old disused cellars, in one of which Rathbone was kept. He opened the door and found the captive still lying upon the vulcanite couch, his face still working like the face of a mechanical toy, and in a deep swoon.

Guest hastily unbuckled the straps and released the neck from the collar. He carried Rathbone to the bed, locked the thin steel chains, which hung from the roof, upon the anklets and the handcuffs, and then dashed water repeatedly in his face.

In his pocket, Mr. Guest invariably carried a supply of liquor. It sometimes happened that in going from a room where he had exhausted all the liquor, into another room where he knew he would find more, the two rooms would be separated by a corridor of some little length, and it sometimes happened that Mr. Guest needed a drink when he arrived in the middle of the corridor. So he always carried a large, silver-mounted flask in the pocket of his coat. He unscrewed this now and poured some whisky down the captive's throat. In a minute or two a faint tinge of colour appeared upon the cheekbones, and with a shudder and sob the tortured soul came back to the tortured body, which even yet it was not to be suffered to leave.

"That's better," Mr. Guest remarked. "I thought you had gone off, I really did. Not yet, my dear boy, not yet. Would not do at all. Would not suit our purpose. I'm sure you won't be so disobliging as to treat us in such a shabby way after all we have done for you. I understand William has told you of the delicate attentions by which we propose to make your exit as interesting and as valuable to science as possible."

Rathbone looked at him steadily. He spoke to him in a weak, thin voice.

"Yes," he said, "I know now, I know everything. But have you no single spark of pity or compassion within you, that you can come here to mock and gloat over a man who is surely suffering more than any one else has ever suffered in the history of the world? Is it impossible to touch you or move you in any way?"

Mr. Guest rubbed his hands with huge enjoyment.

"Ah!" he said chuckling, while the pink, hairless face was one mask of pleasure. "Ah, that is how I have been wanting to hear you talk for a long, long time. I thought we should break you down at last, though. For my part I should have told you long before, only William thought that you would not give yourself away about Miss Marjorie Poole if you knew that we saw it all. However, we know now, so it don't matter. Dear little girl she is, Mr. Rathbone. Sir William sees her every day. She thinks you have gone off with a barmaid and are living quite happily, helping her to manage a pub. in the East. Sir William sees her every day, and she sits on his knee, and they kiss each other and laugh about being in love. Charming, isn't it? Fancy you talking to me like that. Pity? Pity? Aren't I your best friend? Don't I bring you your food every day? And didn't I give you a drink just now? That's more than William did. And besides to-morrow aren't I going to begin the injections that in a month's time or so will make you appear a confirmed dipsomaniac, just before I come down here and hold your head in a bucket of water until you are drowned? Then, dress your body in nice, dirty clothes and have you dropped in the Thames just above Wapping. Oh, Mr. Rathbone, how could you say such cruel things to your good friend, Mr. Wilson Guest? Well, I must be going. I don't think you will want anything more to-night, will you? Good night. Sleep pleasantly. I am going to go to bed myself, and I shall lie awake thinking of the fun there will be at the inquest when the Doctor reports after the post-mortem that you were a confirmed drunkard, and all the world, including Miss Marjorie Poole, will know the real truth about Guy Rathbone's disappearance."

CHAPTER XXI
HOW THEY ALL WENT TO THE HOUSE IN REGENT'S PARK

The little door in the wall of Sir William Gouldesbrough's old Georgian house stood wide open. Carriages were driving up, and the butler was constantly ushering visitors into the vast sombre hall, while a footman kept escorting this or that arrival up the gravel path among the laurel bushes.

It was afternoon, a dull and livid afternoon. Clouds had come down too near to London, and thunder lurked behind them. Never at any time a cheerful place, the old walled house of the scientist to-day wore its most depressing aspect.

The well-known people, who were invited to the demonstration of a stupendous and revolutionary discovery, looked with ill-concealed curiosity at the house, the garden, and the gloomy dignity of the hall.

There has always been a great deal of surmise and curiosity about Sir William's home and private life. That so distinguished a man was a bachelor was in itself an anomaly; and, though Gouldesbrough went continually into society, when he himself entertained it was generally at restaurants, except in very rare instances. So the world of London had come to regard the house in Regent's Park as a sort of wizard's cave, a secret and mysterious place where the modern magician evolved wonders which were to change the whole course of modern life.

About forty people had been invited to the demonstration.

Lord Malvin was there, of course. He came in company with Donald Megbie and Sir Harold Oliver.

All three men seemed singularly grave and preoccupied, and, as the other guests noted the strange, and even stern, expression upon Lord Malvin's face, they whispered that the leader of the scientific world felt that on this day he was to be deposed and must resign his captaincy for ever.

But in this case, as it generally is, gossip was at fault. Nobody knew of the strange conference which had been held by Donald Megbie with Lord Malvin and Sir Harold Oliver. Nobody knew how Miss Marjorie Poole had driven up to Lord Malvin's house in Portland Place one afternoon with Donald Megbie. Nobody would have believed, even if they had been told, how the two grave scientists (who realized that, however many truths are discovered, there still lie hidden forces which we shall never understand this side of the Veil) had listened to the extraordinary story the journalist and the society girl had to tell.

Therefore, on this important afternoon, though Lord Malvin's seriousness was commented upon, it was entirely misunderstood.

Various other scientists from France, Germany and America were present. Donald Megbie, the editor of the Eastminster Gazette, and a famous novelist represented the press and the literary world.

The Bishop of West London, frail, alert, his grey eyes filled with eagerness, was one of the guests. Dean Weare came with him, and the political world had sent three ambassadors in the persons of Mr. Decies, the Home Secretary, Sir James Clouston and Sir William Ellrington. There was an academician who looked like a jockey, and a judge who looked like a trainer. The rest of the guests were all well-known people, who, if they were not particularly interested in science, were yet just the people who could not be ignored on an important occasion. That is to say, they belonged to that little coterie of men and women in London who have no other metier than to be present at functions of extreme importance! For no particular reason they have become fixtures, and their personalities are entirely merged in the unearned celebrity of their name and the apparent necessity for their presence.

The men in their black frock coats passed over the great galleried hall like ghosts, and the white furs of the ladies, and the grey plumes and feathers of their hats, did little to relieve the general note of sadness, or to bring any colour into Sir William Gouldesbrough's house. Among the last arrivals of all were Lady Poole and her daughter.

The guests had congregated in the hall where servants were handing about tea, and where two great fires warmed the air indeed, but could not destroy the sense of mental chill.

Sir William had not yet made his appearance, and it was understood that when the party was complete the butler was to lead them straight to the laboratories. The fact marked the seriousness of the occasion.

This was no social party, no scientific picnic, at which one went to see things which would interest and amuse, and to chatter, just as one chatters at an exhibition of water-colours in Pall Mall. Everybody felt this, everybody knew it, and everybody experienced a sense of awe and gravity as befitted people who were about to witness something which would mark an epoch in the history of the world and change the whole course of human life.

As Marjorie Poole came into the hall with her mother, every one saw that she looked ill. Her face was pale, there were dark rings under her eyes; and, as she stepped over the threshold of the door, one or two people noticed that she shivered. It was remarked also, that directly the two ladies entered, Lord Malvin, Sir Harold Oliver, and Mr. Megbie went up to them in a marked manner, and seemed to constitute themselves as a sort of bodyguard for the rest of the stay in the hall.

"She does not look much like a girl who is engaged to the most successful man of the day, does she?" Mrs. Hoskin-Heath said to Lord Landsend.

"No, you are right," Lord Landsend whispered. "She is afraid Sir William's machine won't work, and that the whole thing won't come off, don't you know. And, for my part, though I don't profess to understand exactly what Sir William is going to show us, I bet a fiver that it is not more wonderful than things I have seen scores of times at Maskelyne and Cook's. Wonderful place that, Mrs. Hoskin-Heath. I often go there on a dull afternoon; it makes one's flesh creep, 'pon my word it does. I have been there about fifty times, and I have never yet felt safe from the disappearing egg."

The butler was seen to come up to Lord Malvin and ask him a question. The peer looked round, and seemed to see that every one was prepared to move. He nodded to the man, who crossed the hall, bowed, and opened a door to the right of the great central staircase.

"My master tells me to say, my lord," he said, addressing Lord Malvin, but including the whole of the company in his gaze – "my master tells me to say that he will be very much obliged if you will come into the laboratory."

A footman went up to the door and held it open, while the butler, with a backward look, disappeared into the passage, and led the way towards the real scene of the afternoon's events.

As that throng of famous people walked down the long corridor, which led past the study door, not a single one of them knew or could surmise that all and severally they were about to experience the emotion of their lives.

CHAPTER XXII
THE DOOM BEGINS

The visitors found themselves in the laboratory, a large building lit by means of its glass roof.

Sir William Gouldesbrough, dressed in a grey morning suit, received them. He shook hands with one or two, and bowed to the rest; but there was no regular greeting of each person who came in.

At one side of the laboratory were three long rows of arm-chairs, built up in three tiers on platforms, much in the same way as the seats are arranged for hospital students in an operating theatre.

The guests were invited to take their places, and in a minute or two had settled themselves, the more frivolous and non-scientific part of them whispering and laughing together, as people do before the curtain rises at a play. This is what they saw.

About two yards away from the lowest row of seats, which was practically on the floor level, the actual apparatus of the discovery began. Upon specially constructed tables, on steel supports, which rose through the boarding of the floor, were a series of machines standing almost the whole length of the room.

Upon the opposite wall to the spectators was a large screen, upon which the Thought Pictures were to be thrown.

Save for the strange apparatus in all its intricacy of brass and vulcanite, coiled wire and glass, there was more than a suggestion of the school-room in which the pupils are entertained by a magic-lantern exhibition.

Marjorie Poole and her mother sat next to Lord Malvin, on either side of him, while Donald Megbie, Sir Harold Oliver, and the Bishop of West London were immediately to their right and left.

Gouldesbrough had not formally greeted Marjorie, but as he stood behind his apparatus ready to begin the demonstration, he flashed one bright look at her full of triumph and exultation. Megbie, who was watching very closely, saw that the girl's face did not change or soften, even at this supreme moment, when the unutterable triumph of the man who loved her was about to be demonstrated to the world.

Amid a scene of considerable excitement on the part of the non-scientific of the audience, and the strained tense attention of the famous scientists, Sir William Gouldesbrough began.

"My Lord, my illustrious confrères, ladies and gentlemen, I have to thank you very much for all coming here this afternoon to see the law which I have discovered actually applied by means of mechanical processes, which have been adapted, invented and made by myself and my brilliant partner and helper, Mr. Wilson Guest."

As he said this, Sir William turned towards the end of the room where his assistant was busy bending over one of the machines.

The man, with the large hairless face, was pale, and his fingers were shaking, as they moved about among the screws and wires. He did not look up as Gouldesbrough paid him this just tribute, though every one of the spectators turned towards him at the mention of his name.

Truth to tell, Mr. Wilson Guest was, for the first time for many years, absolutely bereft of all alcoholic liquor since the night before. For the first time in their partnership Gouldesbrough had insisted upon Guest's absolute abstention. He had never done such a thing before, as he pointed out to his friend, but on this day he said his decision was final and he meant to be obeyed.

The frenzied entreaties of the poor wretch about mid-day, his miserable abasement and self-surrender, as he wept for his poison, were useless alike. He had been forced to yield, and at this moment he was suffering something like torture. It was indeed only by the greatest effort of his weakened will that he could attend to the mechanical duties of adjusting the sensitive machines for the demonstration which was to follow.

"I cannot suppose that any of you here are now unaware of the nature of my experiments and discovery. It has been ventilated in the press so largely during the last few days, and Mr. Donald Megbie has written such a lucid account of the influence which he believes the discovery will have upon modern life, that I am sure you all realize something of the nature of what I am about to show you.

"To put it very plainly, I am going to show you how thought can be collected in the form of vibrations, in the form of fluid electric current, and collected directly from the brain of the thinker as he thinks.

"I am further going to demonstrate to you how this current can be transformed into a visible, living and actual representation of the thoughts of the thinker."

He stopped for a moment, and there was a little murmur from his guests. Then he went on.

"Before proceeding to actual experiment, it is necessary that I should give you some account of the means by which I have achieved such marvellous results. I do not propose to do this in extremely technical language, for were I to do so, a large portion of those here this afternoon would not be able to follow me. I shall proceed to explain in words, which I think most of you will understand.

"My illustrious confrères in Science will follow me and understand the technical aspect of what I am going to put into very plain language, and to them especially I would say that, after the actual experiment has been conducted, I shall beg them to examine my apparatus and to go into the matter with me from a purely scientific aspect.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin.

"That light is transmitted by waves in the ether is abundantly proved, but the nature of the waves and the nature of the ether have, until the present, always been uncertain. It is known that the ultimate particles of bodies exist in a state of vibration, but it cannot be assumed that the vibration is purely mechanical. Experiment has proved the existence of magnetic and electric strains in the ether, and I have found that electro-magnetic strains are propagated with the same speed as that of which light travels.

"You will now realize, to put it in very simple language, that the connection between light and what the man in the street would call currents, or waves of electricity, is very intimate. When I had fully established this in my own mind, I studied the physiology of the human body for a long period. I found that the exciting agents in the nerve system of the animal frame are frequently electric, and by experimenting upon the nerve system in the human eye, I found that it could be excited by the reception of electro-magnetic waves.

"In the course of my experiments I began more and more frequently to ask myself, 'What is the exact nature of thought?'

"You all know how Signor Marconi can send out waves from one of his transmitters. I am now about to tell you that the human brain is nothing more nor less than an organism, which, in the process of thought, sends out into the surrounding ether a number of subtle vibrations. But, as these vibrations are so akin in their very essence to the nature of light, it occurred to me that it might be possible to gather them together as they were given off, to direct them to a certain point, and then, by means of transforming them into actual light, pass that light through a new form of spectroscope; and, instead of coloured rays being projected upon a screen through the prism of the instrument, the actual living thought of the brain would appear for every one to see.

"This is, in brief, precisely what I have done, and it is precisely what I am going to show you in a few minutes. Having given you this briefest and slightest outline of the law I have discovered and proved, I will explain to you something of the mechanical means by which I have proved it, and by which I am going to show it to you in operation."

He stopped once more, and moved a little away from where he had been standing. Every one was now thoroughly interested. There was a tremulous silence as the tall, lean figure moved towards a small table on which the shining conical cap, or helmet of brass, lay.

Sir William took up the object and held it in his right hand, so that every one could see it distinctly. From the top, where the button of an ordinary cap would be, a thin silk-covered wire drooped down to the floor and finally rose again and disappeared within a complicated piece of mechanism a few feet away.

"This cap," Sir William said, "is placed upon the head of a human being. You will observe later that it covers the whole of the upper part of the head down to the eyes, and also descends behind to the nape of the neck and along each side of the neck to the ears.

"A person wearing this cap is quite unconscious of anything more than the mere fact of its weight upon his head. But what is actually going on is, that every single thought he secretes is giving off this vibration, not into the ether, but within the space enclosed by the cap. These vibrations cannot penetrate through the substance with which the cap is lined, and in order to obtain an outlet, they can only use the outlet which I have prepared for them. This is placed in the top of the cap, and is something like those extremely delicate membranes which receive the vibrations of the human voice in a telephone and transmit them along a wire to the receiver at the other end of it."

He put down the cap, and looked towards his audience. Not a single person moved in the very least. The distinguished party, tier upon tier, might have been a group of wooden statues painted and coloured to resemble the human form. Sir William moved on.

"Here," he said, "is a piece of apparatus enclosed in this box, which presented the first great difficulty in the course of the twenty years during which I have been engaged upon this work. Within this wooden shell," he tapped it with his fingers, "the thought vibrations, if I may call them so, are collected and transformed into definite and separate electric currents. Every single variation in their strength or quality is changed into a corresponding electric current, which, in its turn, varies from its fellow currents. So far, I have found that from between 3,000 to 4,000 different currents, differing in their tensity and their power, are generated by the ordinary thoughts of the ordinary human being.

"You may take it from me, as I shall presently show my scientific brethren, that within this box Thought Vibrations are transformed into electric currents."