Thorne Guy
The Soul Stealer

He passed on to a much larger machine, which was connected by a network of wires covered with crimson and yellow silk, to the mahogany box which he had just left.

The outside of the new piece of apparatus resembled nothing so much as one of those enormous wine-coolers which one sees in big restaurants or hotels. It was a large square case standing upon four legs. But from the lid of this case rose something which suggested a very large photographic camera, but made of dull steel. The tube, in which the lens of an ordinary camera is set, was in this case prolonged for six or seven feet, and was lost in the interior of the next machine.

And now, for the first time, the strained ears of the spectators caught a note of keen vibration and excitement in Sir William Gouldesbrough's voice. He had been speaking very quietly and confidently hitherto; but now the measured utterance rose half a tone; and, as when some great actor draws near in speech to the climax of the event he mimics, so Sir William also began to be agitated, and so also the change in tone sent a thrill and quiver through the ranks of those who sat before him.

"Here," he said, "I have succeeded in transforming my electric currents into light. That is nothing, you may think for a moment, the electric current produces light in your own houses at any moment; but you must remember that in your incandescent bulbs the light is always the same in its quality. Light of this sort, passed through the prism of a spectroscope will always tell the same story when the screen presents itself for analysis. My problem has been to produce an infinite variety of light, so that every single thought vibration will produce, when transformed, its own special and individual quality of light, and that," he concluded, "I have done."

Sir Harold Oliver, who had been leaning forward with grey eyes so strained and intent that all the life seemed to have gone out of them and they resembled sick pearls, gave a gasp as Sir William paused.

Then Gouldesbrough continued.

He placed his hand upon the thing like a camera which rose from the lid of the larger structure below it.

"Within this chamber," he said, "all the light generated below is collected and focussed. It passes in one volume through this object."

He moved onwards, as he spoke, running his fingers along the pipe which led him to the next marvel in this stupendous series.

"I have now come," he began again, "to what Mr. Guest and myself might perhaps be allowed to think as our supreme triumph. Here is our veritable Thought Spectroscope within this erection, which, as you will observe, is much larger than anything else I have shown you. The light which pours along that tube is passed through, what I will only now designate as a prism, to keep the analogy of the light spectroscope, and is split up into its component parts.

"You will see that, rising out of this iron box," he ran his hand over the sides of it as if he loved it, "the lens projects just like the lens of a bioscope. This lens is directed full upon that great white screen which is exactly opposite to you all; and this is my final demonstration of the mechanism which I am now about to set in motion to prove to you that I have now triumphed over the hitherto hidden Realm of Thought. From this lens I shall pour upon the screen in a minute or two for you all to see, without doubt and in simple view, the thoughts of the man or woman on whom I shall place the cap."

He ceased. The first part of the demonstration was over.

Lord Malvin rose in his seat. His voice was broken by emotion.

"Sir," he said, "I know, none better perhaps in this room, of the marvellous series of triumphs which have led you to this supreme moment. I know how absolutely and utterly true all you have told us is, and I know that we are going to witness your triumph."

He turned round to the people behind him.

"We are going to see," he said, "the human soul laid bare for the first time in the history of the world."

Then he turned once more to Sir William, and his voice, though still full of almost uncontrollable emotion, became deep and stern.

"Sir William Gouldesbrough," he said, "I have to salute you as the foremost scientist of all time, greater than Newton, greater than Darwin, greater than us all. And I pray to God that you have used the great talent He has given you in a worthy way, and I pray that, if you have done this, you will always continue to do so; for surely it is only for some special reason that God has allowed you this mastery."

He ceased, and there was rustle and hum of movement among all the people, as this patriarch lifted his voice with almost a note of warning and menace in it.

It was all so unusual, so unexpected – why did this strange prophetic note come into the proceedings? What was hidden in the old man's brain?

Every one felt the presence, the unseen presence of deep waters and hidden things.

Marjorie Poole had bowed her head, she was absolutely motionless. There was a tension in the air.

Sir William Gouldesbrough's head was bowed also, as he listened with courteous deference to the words of one whose name had been chief and most honoured in the scientific world for so many years. Those who watched him remarked afterwards that he seemed to be stricken into stone for a moment, as words which were almost a veiled accusation pealed out into the great room.

Then they saw Sir William once more himself in a swift moment. His eyes were bright and there was a look of triumph on his face.

"I thank you, Lord Malvin," he said, in a voice which was arrogant and keen, "I thank you for your congratulations, your belief, and for your hopes for me; and now my lord, ladies, and gentlemen, shall we not proceed to the actual demonstration?

"I am going to ask that one of you come down from your seat and allow me to place the cap upon your head. I shall then darken the laboratory, and the actual thoughts of the lady or gentleman who submits herself or himself to the experiment will be thrown upon the screen."

There was a dead silence now, but most of the people there looked at each other in doubt and fear.

It might well be that, confronted for the first time in their lives with the possibility of the inmost secrets of their souls being laid bare, the men and women of the world would shrink in terror. Who of us, indeed, is able to look clearly and fairly into his own heart, and realize in very actual truth what he is! Do we not, day by day, and hour by hour, apply the flattering unction to our souls that we aren't so very bad after all; that what we did last week, and what, sub-consciously we know we shall do again in the week that is coming, is only the result of a temperament which cannot be controlled in this or that particular, and that we have many genial virtues – not exactly specified or defined – which make it all up to a high level of conduct after all?

Yes! There was a silence there, as indeed there would have been in any other assembly when such a proposal was made.

They were all ashamed, they were all frightened. They none of them dared submit themselves to this ordeal.

And as they looked at their host they saw that a faint and mocking smile was playing about his mouth, and that the eyes above it flamed and shone.

Then they heard his voice once more, and the new and subtle quality of mockery had crept into that also.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am waiting for one of you to give me an opportunity of proving all that I have told you."

"My lord, will not you afford me the great privilege of being the first subject of the new experiment?"

Lord Malvin looked very straightly and rather strangely at Sir William Gouldesbrough.

"Sir," he said, "I am not afraid to display my thoughts to this company, but shall I be the first person who has ever done so? Of course not. You have had other subjects for experiment, whether willing or unwilling – I do not know."

Once again the guests saw Sir William's face change. What strange and secret duel, they asked themselves, was going on before them? How was it that Lord Malvin and Sir William Gouldesbrough seemed to be in the twin positions of accuser and accused?

What was all this?

Lord Malvin continued —

"I am ready to submit myself, Sir William, in the cause of Science. But I would ask you, very, very earnestly, if you desire that the thoughts that animate me at this moment should be given to every one here?"

Gouldesbrough stepped back a pace as though some one had struck him. There was a momentary and painful silence. And then it was that the Bishop of West London rose in his place.

"Sir William," he said, "I shall be highly honoured if you will allow me to be the first subject. I shall fix my thoughts upon some definite object, and then we shall see if my memory is good. I have only just come back from a holiday in the Holy Land, and it will give me great pleasure to sit in your chair and to try and construct some memories of Jerusalem for you all."

With that the Bishop stepped down on to the floor of the laboratory, and sat in the chair which Sir William indicated.

The spectators saw the brass cap carefully fitted on the prelate's head.

Then Sir William stepped to the little vulcanite table upon which the controlling switches were – there was a click, shutters rolled over the sky-lights in the roof, already obscured by the approach of evening, and the electric lights of the laboratory all went out simultaneously. The darkness was profound. The great experiment had begun.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE DOOM CONTINUES

They were all watching, and watching very intently. All they could see was a bright circle of light which flashed out upon the opposite wall. It was just as though they were watching an ordinary exhibition of the magic-lantern or the cinematograph.

And suddenly, swiftly, these world-worn and weary people of society, these scientists who lived by measure and by rule, saw that all Sir William Gouldesbrough had said was true – and truer than he himself knew.

For upon this white screen, where all their eyes were fixed, there came a picture of the Holy City, and it was a picture such as no single person there had ever seen before.

For it was not that definite and coloured presentment of a scene caught by the camera and reproduced through the mechanical means of a lens, which is a thing which has no soul. It was the picture of that Holy City to which all men's thoughts turn in trouble or in great crises of their lives. And it was a picture coloured by the imagination of the man who had just come back from Jerusalem, and who remembered it in the light of the Christian Faith and informed it with all the power of his own personality.

They saw the sharp outlines of the olive trees, immemorially old, as a fringe to the picture. The sun was shining, the white domes and roofs were glistening, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre loomed up large in this vista, seen through a temperament, and through a memory, and seen from a hill.

For a brief space, they all caught their breath and shuddered at the marvellous revelation of the power and magnificence of thought which was revealed to them at that moment. And then they watched the changing, shifting phantom, which was born from the thought of this good man, with a chill and shudder at the incredible wonder of it all.

The afternoon, as it has been said, was thunderous and grim. While the representatives of the world that matters had been listening to Sir William, the forces of nature had been massing themselves upon the frontier-line of experience and thought. And now, at this great moment, the clouds broke, the thunder stammered, and in that darkened place the white and amethyst lightning came and flickered like a spear thrown from immensity.

The gong of the thunder, the crack and flame of the lightning, passed. There was a dead silence. Still the spectators saw the mapped landscape of the Holy City shining before them, glad, radiant and serene.

And then, old Lady Poole dropped her fan – a heavy fan made of ebony and black silk. It clattered down the tier of seats and brought an alien note into the tension and the darkness of the laboratory.

Everybody started in the gloom. There was a little momentary flutter of excitement. And, as they all watched the gleaming circle of light upon which the brain of the Bishop had painted his memories so truthfully and well, they saw a sudden change. The whole, beautiful picture became troubled, misty. It shook like a thing seen through water at a great depth.

Then the vision of the City where God suffered went straight away. There was no more of it. It vanished as a breath breathed upon a window clouds and vanishes.

The concentration of mind of the Bishop must then – as it was said afterwards – have been interrupted by the sudden sound of the falling fan, for all those celebrated men and women who sat and watched saw dim grey words, like clouds of smoke which had formed themselves into the written symbols of speech, appear in the light.

And these were the words —

"God will not allow – "

At that moment the silence was broken by a tiny sound. It is always the small sound that defines blackness and silence.

Sir William, who perhaps had realized where the thoughts of the Bishop were leading him, who had doubtless understood the terror of the naked soul, the terror which he himself had made possible, switched on the light. The whole laboratory was illuminated, and it was seen that the people were looking at each other with white faces; and that the folk, who were almost strangers, were grasping each other by the wrist. And the Bishop himself was sitting quietly in the chair, with a very pale face and a slight smile.

At that moment the people who had come to catch the visual truth of this supreme wonder, rose as one man. Voices were heard laughing and sobbing; little choked voices mingled and merged in a cacophany of fear.

It was all light now, light and bright, and these men and women of the world were weeping on each other's shoulders.

The Bishop rose.

"Oh, please," he said, "please, my dears, be quiet. This is wonderful, this is inexplicable, but we have only begun. Let us see this thing through to the very, very end. Hush! Be quiet! There is no reason, nor is there any need, for hysteria or for fear."

The words of the Churchman calmed them all. They looked at him, they looked at each other with startled eyes, and once more there was a great and enduring silence.

Then Sir William spoke. His face was as pale as linen; he was not at all the person whom they had seen half-an-hour ago – but he spoke swiftly to them.

"His Lordship," he said, "has given us one instance of how the brain works, and he has enabled us to watch his marvellous memory of what he has so lately seen. And now, I will ask some one or other of you to come down here and help me."

Young Lord Landsend looked at Mrs. Hoskin-Heath and winked.

"I shall be very pleased, Sir William," he said in the foolish, staccato voice of his class and kind, "I shall be very pleased, Sir William, to think for you and all the rest of us here."

Lord Landsend stumbled down from where he sat and went towards the chair. As he did so, there were not wanting people who whispered to each other that a penny for his thoughts was an enormous price to pay. The cap was fitted on his head; they all saw it gleaming there above the small and vacuous face; and then once more the lights went out.

The great circle of white light upon the screen remained fixed and immovable. No picture formed itself or occurred within the frame of light and shadow. For nearly a minute the circle remained unsullied.

Then Mrs. Hoskin-Heath began to titter. Every one, relieved from the tension of the first experiment, joined her in her laugh. They all realized that young Lord Landsend could not think, and had not any thoughts at all. In the middle of their laughter, which grew and rose until the whole place was filled with it, the young man, doubtless spurred on by this unaccustomed derision, began to think.

And what they all saw was just this – some one they had all seen before, many times, after dinner.

They simply saw, in rather cloudy colour, Miss Popsy Wopsy, the celebrated Gaiety girl, alertly doing things of no importance, while the baton of the conductor made a moving shadow upon the chiffon of her frock.

And so here was another brain, caught up, classified and seen.

CHAPTER XXIV
MR. WILSON GUEST MAKES A MISTAKE

Mr. Wilson Guest had seen all this many times before. The actual demonstration would have given him amusement and filled him with that odd secret pride which was the only reward he asked from that science which he had followed so long under different conditions than the present.

If Sir William Gouldesbrough had not absolutely prohibited the use of any alcohol upon that day, Guest might have been normal and himself. It was in this matter that Sir William made a great mistake. In his extreme nervousness and natural anxiety, he forgot the pathology of his subject, and did not realize how dangerous it is to rob a man of his drug, and then expect him to do his work.

Guest's assistance had been absolutely necessary in the first instance, in order to prepare the various parts of the Thought Spectrum, and to ensure the proper working of the machinery.

But now, when all that was done, when the demonstration was actually going on and everything was working smoothly and well, there was no immediate need at the moment for Guest's presence in the laboratory.

Accordingly, while Lord Landsend was vainly trying to secrete thought, Wilson Guest slipped out by the side-door in the dark. He was in a long passage leading to the other experimental rooms, and he heaved a great sigh of relief. High above in the air, the thunder could still be heard growling, but the corridor itself, lit by its rows of electric lights and softly carpeted, seemed to the wretched man nothing but an avenue to immediate happiness.

He shambled and almost trotted towards the dining-room in the other part of the house, where he knew that he would find something to drink quicker than anywhere else. He crossed the big hall and went into the dining-room. No one was there.

It was a panelled room with a softly glowing wood fire upon the hearth, and heavy crimson curtains shutting out the dying lights of the day. On a gleaming mahogany sideboard were bottles of cut-glass, ruby, diamond, and amber; bottles in which the soft firelight gleamed and was repeated in a thousand twinkling points.

A loud sob of relief burst from the drunkard, and he went up to the sideboard with the impish greed and longing that one sees in some great ape.

And now, as his shadow, cast upon the wall in the firelight, parodied and distorted all his movements, there seemed two obscene and evil creatures in the rich and quiet room. It was as though the man with his huge hairless face were being watched and waited for by an ape-like ambassador from hell.

Guest clutched the mahogany sideboard and, his fingers were so hot that a greyness like that of damp breath on frosted glass glowed out upon the wood – it seemed as if the man's very touch brought mildew and blight.

Guest ran his eye rapidly along the decanters. His throat felt as though it was packed with hot flour. His mouth tasted as if he had been sucking a brass tap. His tongue was swollen and his lips were hard, cracked, and feverish. He snatched the brandy bottle from a spirit-case, and poured all that was in it into a heavy cut-glass tumbler. Then, looking round for more, for the tantalus had not been more than one-fourth part full, he saw a long wicker-covered bottle of curaçao, and he began to pour from it into the brandy. Then, without water, or mineral water, he began to gulp down this astonishing and powerful mixture, which, in a fourth of its quantity, would probably have struck down the ordinary man, as a tree snaps and falls in a sudden wind.

It had been Guest's intention to take enough alcohol to put him into something like a normal condition, and then to return to the laboratory to assist at the concluding scenes of the demonstration, and to enjoy it in his own malicious and sinister fashion. But as the liquor seemed to course through his veins and to relieve them of the intolerable strain, as he felt his whole body respond to the dose of poison to which he had accustomed it, thoughts of returning to the laboratory became very dim and misty.

Here was this large comfortable room with its panelled walls, its old family portraits in their massive gilt frames, this fire of wood logs in a great open hearth, sending out so pleasant and hospitable an invitation to remain. Every fibre of the wretch's body urged him to take the twilight hour and enjoy it.

Guest sat down in a great arm-chair, padded with crimson leather, and gazed dreamily into the white heart of the fire.

He felt at peace, and for five minutes sat there without movement, looking in the flickering firelight like some grotesque Chinese sculpture, some god of darkness made by a silent moon-faced man on the far shores of the Yang-tze-Kiang.

Then Mr. Guest began to move again; the fuel that he had taken was burning out. The man's organism had become like one of those toy engines for children, which have for furnace a little methyl lamp, and which must be constantly renewed if the wheels of the mechanism are to continue to revolve.

Mr. Guest rose from the arm-chair and shambled over to the sideboard again. The bottle of curaçao was still almost full, though there did not appear to be any more brandy.

That would do, he thought, and he poured from the bottle into his glass as if he had been pouring beer. The wretched man had forgotten that, in his present state – a state upon the very verge of swift and hidden paroxysm and of death – the long abstention of the morning and afternoon had modified his physiological condition. Moreover, the suddenness of these stealthy potations in the dining-room began to have their way with him. He was a man whom it was almost impossible to make intoxicated, as the ordinary person understands intoxication. When Guest was drunk, his mind became several shades more evil, that was all.

But at this moment the man succumbed, and in half-an-hour his brain was absolutely clouded and confused. He had forgotten both time and occasion, and could not think coherently.

At last he seemed to realize this himself. He rose to his feet and, clutching hold of the dining-room table, swayed and lurched towards the dining-room door. There was a dim consciousness within him of something which was imminently necessary to be done, but which he had forgotten or was unable to recall.

"What was it?" he kept asking himself with a thick indistinctness. "I knew I had somethin' to do, somethin' important, can't think what it was."

At that moment his hand, which he had thrust into his pocket, touched a key.

"I've got it," he said, "'course, I know now. I must go down and put the cap on Rathbone, after I have injected the alcohol preparation. William and I want to sit in front of the screen and follow his thoughts; they are funnier than they ever used to be before we told him what we were doing to him. I'll just take one more drink, then I'll go down-stairs to the cellars at once."