224/4/3, /3.4/20 J3 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE BEQUEST OF ROLAND BURRAGE DIXON cLAss OF 1897 PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY 1916-1935 The Old Corner Book Store, Inc. Boston, - Mass. l NUMBER 87 Oe NUM BER 87 BY HARRINGTON HEXT NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922 All rights reserved INTRODUCTION THE series of international events here to be chronicled in connection with that astounding ap- parition, known in the United Kingdom and the United States of America as ‘the Bat,” while challenging and wakening the terror of the civil- lized world, yet possessed for one little, common- place community a unique significance. That com- pany was represented by the Club of Friends, and for this reason it is necessary that a glimpse of the club should open the narrative. Fate, which is only another name for human temperament writ large, decreed that a figure second to none, even as it stands, in the history of civilization should never attain to its true dimen- sions, or win that acclaim its achievement de- served. Instead, human limitations leavened the lump of genius and he, who might have been one of the world’s supreme figures, remains for ever beneath the stature of lesser men than himself. Temperament ruined all, and the following rec- ord not only chronicles a series of events contrary to human experience and unparalleled in human story, but relates, between the lines, a tragedy comparable to the Greek in its tremendous and solemn proportions. For once again Prometheus set foot upon earth in the likeness of a man, and once again a jealous fate tormented the Light- V vi, INTRODUCTION bringer and confounded his magnificent contribu- tion to the world’s hope of happiness. But no Zeus came between the hero of this awful narra- tive and his gift to humanity. A darker and subtler destiny was his: to be denied the fruit of his own lifelong devotion by inherent qualities of mind; and to be chained for ever on the arid precipice of the world’s hatred in gyves forged by himself. Such confusion of attributes, such greatness and littleness within a single heart, cost civilization a treasure beyond human power to estimate, or indeed conceive. Providence, with one hand, of- fered the children of men such a boon and bounty as life has not known; and with the other drew it back again. Nor shall Providence be blamed when the tremendous tale is told and its implications perceived. E. G. CONTENTS chapter PAGE I. THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER SEEAT . . . 1 II. THE NEW MEMBER . . . . . . . 8 III. WHAT HAS DONE IT? . . . . . . . 27 IV. THE ALBERT MEMORIAL . . . . . . 41 W. JoSEPH ASHLAR . . . . . . . . 58 VI. To SAVE JUGo-SLAVIA . . . . . . . 76 VII. THE NEW CHEMISTRY . . . . . . . 94 VIII. GRIMWooD . . . . . . . . . . 109 IX. I SEE “THE BAT’ . . . . . . . . 132 X. FROM RUSSIA To CHINA . . . . . . 156 XI. THE UNKNOWN IN OUR MIDST . . . . 175 XII. THE SUMMONS TO GRIMwood . . . . 190 XIII. FACE TO FACE . . . . . . . . . 204 XIV. NUMBER 87 . . . . . . . . . . 219 XV. SIR BRUCE's NARRATIVE . . . . . . 241 XVI. THE LAST of GRIMwood . . . . . . 254 NUMBER 87 CHAPTER I THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER SEEAT THE Club of Friends was an organism purely social. We met after the work of the day for relaxation and amusement; but certain rules and reservations served always to limit membership, and I think that at no time did we ever number more than five and twenty members. Yet the in- stitution had attained a respectable age, and while most of the rising generation preferred conditions more entertaining and diversified, there never lacked men to enlist in the Club of Friends. When Chislehurst first became a popular suburb of Lon- don, a few early, private residents planned the community; and though they were now all gone, others had succeeded them. I, for example, followed my father, and my friend, Leon Jacobs, had succeeded old Isidore Jacobs, the founder of the club. We met in the evening and enjoyed conversa- tion on all subjects of human interest; while, as an innovation, at the proposal of Bishop Blore, the present doyen of the club, we started a winter session of short lectures and invited eminent pub- licists to visit us, accept our hospitality and after- 1 2 NUMBER 87 wards entertain us with brief addresses, or air their social opinions, followed by discussion. But the experiment was short-lived. Few eminent men cared to be troubled, or could spare the time; while those minor celebrities who did accept our invitation, dine with us at their convenience, and afterwards propound their theories for human advancement, proved too biased, too possessed with the paramount importance of their own con- victions on art, politics and economics, to attract unprejudiced listeners. The last who came was a man of European reputation, and the tragedy and mystery that sur- rounded the end of Alexander Skeat followed within a week of his visit. His death created a deep impression in our little circle, and it seemed hard to believe that this famous figure, so full of vitality and the electric energy of genius, should, at the height of his fame, have vanished into the unknown without explanation. At the close of our evening with Mr. Skeat—an evening marked by vigorous setting forth of ir- reconcilable doctrines—Jacobs and I had attended him to the railway station through the darkness of a winter night. The great man warned us against sensuality and all indulgence, against indifference, coldness of heart, overmuch curiosity and every form of materialism and greed. He spoke of the iniqui- ties of the middle class and prophesied their well deserved extinction. He then turned upon one Paul Strossmayer, our latest and none too popu- lar guest member, whose views he had furiously DEATH OF ALEXANDER SEQEAT 3 opposed. He swore that Strossmayer was a deep knave and in every respect an undesirable alien. “I read faces as lesser men read books,” he said, “and I read in this Jugo-Slav, or Serb, or Czecho-Slovake, or whatever he calls himself, a dangerous and anti-human impulse. Be warned and deny him your hospitality or friendship. Un- der that astute and suave exterior there hides a crafty, calculating, godless rascal with a heart Of flint.” Skeat was soon gone and I must confess we breathed the easier for his departure. Returning to the club, we found opinion rather set against him and his fiery exegesis; for such is the British instinct, that his onslaught on Strossmayer in- clined even those who did not like the new mem- ber to take his side. A week later the murder of Alexander Skeat startled Europe and America. I transcribe an account published in The Times on the morning after the tragedy. “We regret to report the death of Mr. Alex- ander Skeat under extraordinary circumstances. As yet no light has been thrown upon his sudden end, but there can be little doubt that the famous author lost his life at the hand of an assassin, though the manner of the murder and the person of the murderer are as yet unknown. “Returning last night from a lecture at the Eccentric Club, near the hour of midnight, Mr. Skeat was crossing St. James’s Park, when death overtook him. 4 NUMBER 87 “A policeman, standing at the time on the sus- pension bridge that crosses the ornamental waters, heard a single, loud cry from the path that ap- proaches the bridge easterly, and hastening to the spot he found a man lying upon his face on the grass at the path side. Close at hand, though but dimly visible, for the night was foggy, P.C. B49 declares that he saw a large and living animal, such as he had never seen before. He attempts no exact description of this creature, but has sworn that he distinguished a black, humped ob- ject, “as large as a horse’ with a very long neck and a narrow head above which were set tall ears. Its eyes shone like a cat’s as he turned his lan- tern upon it, and it appeared to hesitate as he advanced a short distance towards it. He then blew his whistle, and the thing, evidently alarmed, hopped twice, then spread black wings, ascended swiftly into the air and disappeared. The con- stable likens the creature to a huge bird, and though four other officers, who ran to answer his summons, saw nothing of this alleged rara avis, in one particular they corroborate a detail re- ported by John Syme (P.C. B49). All were con- scious of an overpowering taint and reek in the air—an animal smell. Herbert Adams—a con- stable from the country—described it as though he had “run into a dozen foxes.” Subsequent ex- amination, however, revealed no trace of any dis- turbance to turf or soil; but the area where Mr. Alexander Skeat perished has been railed off and guarded for more careful investigation today. “The unfortunate gentleman appeared to be DEATH OF ALEXANDER SEQEAT 5 quite dead. He was carried to the St. James’s Street police station and Dr. Forbes Weston, who arrived within ten minutes, recognized the victim and found life to be extinct. “It is not too much to describe this sudden de- struction of an extraordinary genius as an inter- national disaster, for Alexander Skeat was still but fifty-four and his creative energy far short of exhaustion. We shall examine his achievement and its significance tomorrow; but for the moment can only chronicle an end upon which no ray of explanatory light has yet fallen. “The theory of death at the onset of an un- known and savage animal in the heart of the me- tropolis appears too extravagant to be entertained and we prefer to believe that time will presently reveal a murder, though whether the purpose and the perpetrator of the crime are discovered re- mains to be seen. An autopsy takes place this morning.” - The evening papers of that day conveyed par- ticulars of the post-mortem examination, and this increased the mystery of Skeat's end. For the result neither confirmed nor contradicted the opin- ion of The Times. There was no wound upon the body of the dead man, and only chance determined the operators to investigate a small red speck discovered under Skeat's left shoulder-blade. It looked, as the news- papers said, like the bite of a flea or the prick of a pin. Here, however, at this almost imperceptible point, death had entered, and examination showed 6 NUMBER 87 an incision no wider than a thread which persisted from the skin through the tissues to the heart. Therein it disappeared. There were no inflicted wounds of any sort, though a bruise on the forehead showed that Alexander Skeat had fallen forward and struck his head as he fell. But anal- ysis, while it revealed no poison from this bite, or puncture, discovered a profound disturbance of the blood as a consequence of it—a disturbance believed at first akin to that which certain snake poisons are known to cause. The body of the dead man was also strangely affected. It revealed dis- integration of its component parts and the intro- duction of an unknown material foreign to healthy bone and flesh. Chemists were conducting an examination on these problems. The day brought no news from the police. Im- mense activity marked Scotland Yard and a wide net was spread for possible criminals. But upon no organization or society fell even suspicion. Skeat, while not openly willing to support the more unscrupulous of the organizations work- ing against our Government and Constitution, in no sense could be said to have incurred their en- mity. He was a fighter and a hard hitter; but if any regarded him as an adversary of law and or- der, they were those in authority: men of all least likely to commit lawless violence, or suppress an opponent by direct means. In England one may preach a wide measure of treason at will in books, newspapers and journals; it is only when we utter the same aloud at a street corner to a dozen loafers that we get locked up. This Skeat DEATH OF ALEXANDER SEQEAT 7 knew well enough and had always acted accord- ingly. Enemies he possessed in plenty; but among them could be numbered no man likely thus to take the law into his own hands. Moreover the issue was confused by the few particulars recorded of his death. For it appeared certain that he had died under a force as yet a secret from science; and while the majority of those set to solve the problem discarded the theory of a savage and un- known poisonous animal, the fact remained that death had come through a channel absolutely un- familiar to human experience. CHAPTER II THE NEW MEMBER BEFORE dealing with the new member it is neces- sary that some of the older supporters of the Club of Friends should first be mentioned. General Fordyce and his younger brother, Sir Bruce, were bachelors both—indeed most of us belonged to that order. The general repre- sented a typical reactionary mind, built on old traditions and a lifetime in the army; but his geniality, love of a jest, generosity and humanity made him far more popular than his brother—a much abler man, but lacking in charm, or social gifts. Yet Sir Bruce could claim quite as good a heart—upon that we all agreed. Both he and his brother had spent their working days in India. Sir Bruce was very learned, with a record of dis- tinguished accomplishment behind him. For many years he had been Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Calcutta and had won the Fellowship of the Royal Society for his original work on the Chiroptera—the order of flying mammals, or bats. He had built himself a bungalow in the Eastern style at Chislehurst, while his elder brother dwelt not far off upon the Common in a modern villa. But Sir Bruce owned a second home in Devon- shire—the family place, which General Fordyce lacked means to keep up and which he had, there- 8 THE NEW MEMBER 9 fore, handed over to his brother. A great contrast was presented by the pair, for while the soldier loved his own voice and lightened his comments on men and things with invariable good humor, the man of science admitted himself a pessimist and seldom shared our hopes of amelioration for the race of man. Yet under his taciturn and watchful manner he was no cynic, and for my part, I always esteemed his reasoned opinions and val- ued any conclusions he might impart when in an amiable mood. Bishop Walter Blore, a Colonial prelate now retired, preserved a mean between the brothers. He was conservative and a little suspicious of the world’s progress in certain directions, but charity sweetened his outlook and enthusiastic religious faith kept his hope high. One must also mention Jack Smith, a barrister who still practiced, though he was always talking of giving up, and Merrivale Medland, a wine mer- chant, a kind-hearted but credulous man, whom we respected and valued for his supervision of our modest cellar. Of younger members there were not many. My friend, Leon Jacobs, was a stockbroker, and I, Ernest Granger, secretary of the Club of Friends, who now undertake this extraordinary narrative, pursued my business of actuary in the Apollo Life Assurance Society. Jacobs and I were of an age —thirty-five—and the infants of the club. On the night when Paul Strossmayer first came amongst us, all those I have mentioned, save Bishop Blore, were present in the Smoking room, 10 NUMBER 87 and conversation, as usual, ran upon serious subjects. Nature happened to be our theme and some- body—I think Jack Smith, whose hobby was rose- growing—declared that in Nature’s categories mercy found no place. “Neither passion nor compassion belongs to her,” he said. “She never laughs, never relents, and is as solemn and bloodthirsty and business- like as a hunting owl.” Then Sir Bruce spoke. He was a little fellow and had a weak voice, which belied him, for few old Indians I have met enjoyed greater vigor of mind and body. “Sentimental man and his pathetic fallacy have thrown dust into our eyes concerning Nature,” he declared; “and so it comes about that we dignify her energies into something worthy of admiration, or disapproval, as the case may be. That is quite as futile as applauding a thousand horse power steam engine for doing its work. Science has cor- rected this old attitude, or should do so. Science has revealed that what beauty, or horror, we may find in Nature’s operations and phenomena lies in the human mind which weighs these manifesta- tions. We apply esthetic tests to her outward appearance and control to her terrific energy. Thus we condemn her to the service of man and translate her into human values. In reality, she has no others.” “Probably that is why poets hate Science,” I said; but General Fordyce protested. “They cannot justly do so, for they must know THE NEW MEMBER 11 that Science has improved the world out of knowl- edge, made it cleaner, sweeter, more wholesome, more adequate, more worthy of mankind. In a word, Science has helped to lift us above the brutes.” Sir Bruce spoke again from his armchair by the fire. “There’s another side to that. The poets re- member what high explosives mean—and poison gas. Did those lift us above the brutes?” “My dear Bruce, what a question! Emphat- ically they did; and who knows that better than you? If Science could help us to beat Germany by the only possible means left to do so, who shall reasonably blame her for the means?” “Only the young poets, who, rather than fight, would have thrown open the door to Germany,” said Jack Smith. “The youthful wiseacres, who avoided fighting, but have been so busy lecturing other people ever since the war ended. They de- spise Science, sublimely unaware that Science and Science alone kept the enemy’s hoof off their own necks. Where would all these sleek canaries be if Germany had won?” “Man may prostitute Science for his own self- ish needs,” I declared, “but that is her misfor- tune, not her fault.” Sir Bruce applauded my sentiment. “Well said, Granger,” he answered. Then Leon Jacobs spoke. He was a man of wide sympathies and acute intelligence. “There’s no doubt that a deep, common sus- picion exists between the Arts and Science,” he 12 NUMBER 87 said. “We see it displayed, not only by the poets, but in the highest centers of learning. There is friction and what we call the “humanities’ in ed- ucation are very jealous of Science—as though Science were not the most humane of all branches of human progress. Take the Carnegie Trust of two million's to the Scots Universities. Already in the administration of this immense sum Science, or those who represent her, find their sense of justice outraged by the steady transference of these endowments from themselves and what the testator intended, to more picturesque mental activities.” “Science is still the Cinderella,” said Jack Smith; and at the same moment Mr. Paul Stross- mayer entered the smoking room. He was a man in the fulness of life—tall and spare, but with abundant physical and intellectual force. One had only to study his face to perceive qualities that lifted the expression out of the com- mon. He was dark-skinned, with a close-cropped black beard and moustache, wonderful brown eyes, heavy, rather coarse hair, also close-cropped, and black eyebrows. His forehead was not high but distinguished by unusual breadth. It seemed to bulge out a little over his ears, which were set closely to his head and of great beauty. His nose was solid but well proportioned and his hands were an artist’s — delicate, nervous and finely moulded. The man, was, in fact, built to chal- lenge and we found presently that he left none of us indifferent. Personally I always found Something magnetic and attractive about him, and THE NEW MEMBER 13 so did Leon Jacobs; but others he repelled from the first, and these never changed their opinion; though in the case of Medland, the wine merchant, and Jack Smith, they vacillated, sometimes pro- fessing to admire Strossmayer, then again de- testing him. He spoke perfect English, with an accent and intonation very distinguished, and revealed great vivacity of movement. But his mannerisms were under restraint, and even in the heat of argument he was always courteous and agreeable. Indeed he showed deference to men older than himself, and while making no servile effort to ingratiate, preserved an urbane and ami- able attitude to all. One felt curiously that he lived at higher pressure than we, with an intensity of feeling, conviction and ambition that were de- nied us. A patriotism almost passionate inspired him for his country, and he shared the hopes and dreams of a new-born nation. For he was a Jugo- Slav—a kinsman of that very famous Bishop Strossmayer, who, during his episcopate of five and fifty years, worked so nobly for the union of the Southern Slavs and a promised land which his eyes were not destined to behold. This good prelate had been known to Bishop Blore in past time, and it was our bishop who nominated the visitor, on hearing that he had become domiciled in England for the present with a family of his compatriots at Chislehurst. Paul Strossmayer had been educated in Eng- land and now returned to it on specific service for the new State. He pursued his purposes with enthusiasm and made no secret of them. Indeed, 14 NUMBER 87 upon the occasion of his first visit to the club, accident willed that he should give us particulars. General Fordyce made him welcome and he ac- cepted our friendly reception with grace and even gratitude. He gave a first impression of an am- bitious, self-centered man—a man who knew ex- actly what he wanted, was confident that he could achieve his purpose, and would not allow senti- ment or any other emotion to come between him and his goal. He ordered a whiskey and soda, drew a cigar from his case and went to one of the four writing desks which surrounded the smoking room. We then continued to pursue our subject and pres- ently, when he had completed two letters, he changed his chair and occupied a vacant one beside me. He waited for a while, to pick up the gist of the topic, and when he had done so, re- vealed that our subject was not only interesting to him, but one upon which he stood deeply informed. - “You are touching the very matter that brings me to this country, gentlemen,” he said pleasantly. “Permit that to be my introduction. Would you like me to speak?” The ingenuous question attracted us. “We were considering the application of Sci- ence to the great world problems of the future,” I said. “Surely the supreme, vital subject for all active minds,” he answered. “Is there another topic remotely akin to this in gravity, or full of more tremendous significance? I hold a brief for Sci- THE NEW MEMBER 15 l ence. I, and those for whom I am privileged to work—the keenest intellects in Jugo-Slavia to- day—perceive with profound conviction that it is Science which will remould Europe and rebuild the second chaos, in which even our greatest states- men now move as blind men. For in our judg- ment, the countries destined first to emerge from the confusion, the houses likely first to be set in order, are those which defer before all else to their chemist-philosophers. Yes, we link the terms, because through organic chemistry and its philo- sophical application shall emerge the Supreme, physical powers to control and direct future civilization.” “A soulless hope,” murmured General Fordyce. “Sufficient for the day is the problem thereof,” answered Paul Strossmayer. “But would you set physical energies before the humanistic and spiritual power which others hold vital to rejuvenation of humanity?” asked Jack Smith. “Would you deny that to the Arts we must look first, and lead man upward from his heart rather than his head, Mr. Strossmayer?” “We Jugo-Slavs are concerned with things as they are,” he answered. “Humanity lives on its belly, and the soul of a hungry, angry, dishonored world can offer little material for human salva- tion, while its children lack food. We—first of all in the Balkans—are a spiritual nation, as I believe; but our eyes are wide open, as the eyes of long subjugated nations are apt to be. We labor under no delusions, or illusions, in the naked dawn light of our State, and we perceive that for 16 NUMBER 87 a generation to come, civilization must be in the melting pot. The old security of the strong and the freedom of the mighty are gone. We are all in the same leaky boat, great and small together, and power is not vested in what you call ‘the humanities'—far from it. Science, not the Arts, ended the war. War, indeed, is a ghost for a moment, but it remains for the men and women of this century to decide if the ghost shall vanish into thin air, or presently grow solid and clothe itself again with bones and flesh. We must, then, ac- cept existing conditions and not indulge in meta- physics. Physics alone offers salvation. Physics alone is stronger than treaties and more trust- worthy than the word of living man; because phys- ics means power.” “You are a sad materialist, Mr. Strossmayer,” said Merrivale Medland. But the other shook his head. “The world is still under the tyranny of shib- boleths,” he answered, “and until our values can be stated in words, to be spoken and understood universally, there must lie a gulf of misunder- standing between the nations. No panacea will bridge this gulf, for diversity of languages must forever keep it open. Babel meant a deeper and more spiritual curse on progress than the most malignant interposition of the Devil. But let us turn to those languages that all speak with one tongue and understand with one heart, my friends. In the Arts, music is such an universal language; and chemistry in the Sciences. The men of Sci- ence labor under no such crushing disadvantage THE NEW MEMBER 17 as our politicians, for in their search for truth, they recognize the hindrance of tongues and sub- stitute symbols beyond possibility of two construc- tions. In Science, Jew and Gentile, East and West, Latin and Scandinavian, meet as upon sure ground.” He turned to Medland with his rather fasci- nating, sly smile. “I am not a ‘sad materialist,” but a convinced one—a joyous one—monsieur, though the word illustrates my argument very happily. Do you and I mean the same thing when we speak of ‘materialism’? Assuredly not. If we all in this room set down on paper our understanding of that word’s significance, would our definitions agree? Not two of them! “Our purpose in Jugo-Slavia,” he continued, “is simple and direct. We look ahead; we are aware that radio-activity is but the momentous discovery of yesterday; but we believe that, in the arcana of nature, exist forces beyond the dreams of mankind, and we are out, at this early stage in our corporate history, to discover and corner those forces if we can do so.” “‘Corner’ is a sinister word,” said Jack Smith. The other flinched a little. “Hear me further,” he replied. “How to dis- cover and secure the unknown? Only by taking a line of action which, as yet, seems wholly for- eign to the genius of the existing Great Powers. Not, of course, that all nations save your own, gentlemen, are not already busy on the great quest—they are; but success cannot be promised, 18 NUMBER 87 because the seeker belongs to France, or England, Italy or the United States. It will probably come by chance, and in this tremendous hunt, the hum- blest of kingdoms—my own, is as likely to achieve success as the greatest. Indeed, more likely, for we are far more keenly alive to its significance and its possibilities than old empires, which have long known power and are, therefore, tempted to think on the old, conservative lines of what con- stituted power in the past.” - General Fordyce regarded the speaker some- what blankly. - “So that’s what you little nations are after?” he asked. - - “Why not, General? The little, new peoples acutely perceive their precarious foothold among the great, old peoples. They judge that, if the world is to be remoulded along the old lines and the promises of peace made illusory, their liberty and independence are worthless words. We, at any rate, believe that the next war—if next there be—and nothing in the existing situation rules out the probability—we hold that the next war will not be one of numbers, but radio-activity; and realize that, upon such a basis, we have as good a chance as the might of the Old World, or the New. Consider one man: Hugo Stinnes, the German millionaire, at present engaged in getting a strangle-hold on half the basic industries of the Continent. Suppose a chemist came to such a man and suggested that he might be upon the track of something more powerful than basic industries? Would Stinnes send the scientist about his busi- THE NEW MEMBER 19 ness, as you sent those who first advocated the ‘tank” in war? No; if a hundred young men ap- proached him, he would find opportunity and en- couragement for them all, because he would argue that, though ninety-nine were likely to fail, the hundredth might do the trick—win the paramount secret. That is the spirit which inspires all men and nations with foresight. Each hopes to be first — but England. Your country, glorious though she continues to be, has never possessed foresight. It is no part of your national endow- ment.” “You go too far, sir,” said Medland somewhat warmly. The Jugo-Slav bowed. “I shall apologize if I am wrong,” he answered. “But consider recent facts. None knows better than I in my present inquiries what encourage- ment original research receives here. I have heard it on a hundred tongues, gentlemen. Your men of science won the war: there is not a shadow of doubt about that. And you patted them on the back and gave the more fortunate trifling money presents and O.B.E.'s—and forgot them. The great rewards went to commanders on land and sea, not those who enabled them to win their vić- tories. And now you have forgotten your scien- tists and, until you want them again, you will con- tinue to forget them. But next time you will need mightier things than tanks, or Zeppelin destroy- ers, trinitrotoluene, or mustard gas. “In the face of the hatred of the nations, we cannot rule out war. Germany hates the Poles, 20 NUMBER 87 as all men hate those they have wronged; China hates Japan, as all men hate those who have wronged them. Hatred and distrust are rife, and the great peace did not lessen them by one Smoth- ered curse. We were on the high road to success, but the human ingredient intervened and reason went down. How, you ask? How was the oppor- tunity lost? By America. President Wilson was the first great statesman who ever came to a world conference without one spark of racial prejudice. Infinitely much might have been hoped from that. But alas! he was “all too human’; his noble ideals were vitiated by a parochial perspective, lack of experience in world politics, and a certain profes- sorial vanity, which tried to do single-handed a work demanding all the strong hands and big hearts in America. The united brain of the United States! That must have solved the prob- lem. That cold, clear brain, unvitiated by racial hatreds and distrust, had lifted the whole com- plex into the upper air. But it was never per- mitted to try. Wilson played a lone hand and it failed—as lone hands are apt to do. Since then America, seeing her failure, has righted it and, with a superb gesture and inspired by pure rea- son, has taken the Old World’s hand again and set her feet on surer ground.” I perceived a growing dislike for Herr Stross- mayer in the eyes of several among his listeners. A few were at no trouble to conceal it. “And what does this veiled attack on our sys- tem amount to?” inquired Sir Bruce. “What, THE NEW MEMBER 21 if it were not an impertinent question, do you seek in England for Jugo-Slavia, monsieur?” He spoke suavely, but I knew that aversion from the stranger lay behind the question. The old Indian was deeply interested, however, and did not conceal the fact. “The difficulty of a leader,” answered Stross- mayer, “is to find the brains of his nation and win them to himself, first by trust and then by enthusiasm. I am not a leader of men, but even in my quest, trust and enthusiasm are the vital need. I am in fact a tradesman, seeking to do a ‘deal” in chemists. We regard young men of promise in the laboratory as potential gold mines, and since your chemistry in this country, despite the handicaps under which research labors, is still the finest and subtlest in the world, I come first to you. England has led the van a thousand times, and if you let your discoveries—synthetic dyes, for example—slip through your fingers, that is not to condemn the discoveries—only the greedy idiots who sold one of the most precious posses- sions in the world for immediate gain. I want your young, brilliant chemists—your men of single soul and pure ambition—who pass their exam- inations and attain honors, only to find themselves unhonored for ever afterwards. I come to seek these men, who have left the retort and spectro- scope behind and know the significance of the electroscope and spinthariscope—the men who may turn romance into reality and find the phi- losopher’s stone in this our time.” 22 NUMBER 87 “You will seek far,” said General Fordyce. “We are a practical people.” - “You believe so,” answered the newcomer. “But you are mistaken in that self-estimate. Your genius is handicapped by your muddled thinking at every turn. A less practical or imaginative people never existed. And yet your absurd lack of imagination has enabled you to do deeds that beggar the imagination' I do not belittle your greatness for a moment, General. As to the chem- ists, they are here. As a radio-chemist myself, though without genius, I know enough to under- stand, and I find material waiting for me. Yes, the men are here, and the adequate rewards and inducements are in Jugo-Slavia.” “You would buy our devotion for your State?” I asked. “Exactly. I say, ‘Come and throw in your luck with us, my young friends. You will be in clover, because we understand your importance and know the prizes are gigantic, though few. Come and do your best; and whether you can help us, or fail to do so, you will be respected, honored, rewarded and put beyond the reach of anxiety while your unproductive work proceeds. We trust you, as ministers of Science, to pay faithful service in her courts; and if it is granted to you to do great things for Jugo-Slavia—well; but if you fail, then your failure and disappointment will be all you have to suffer. Your future in any case is as- sured. You are servants of the new State, respon- sible to none but your peers. You will receive handsome emolument and generous consideration, 24 NUMBER 87 to what? To the work by which he attained fame? To the slow, patient research which is helping the sum of human knowledge and potential pros- perity? Far from it. He has become a Govern- ment official, and henceforth routine and red-tape eat him alive. He does the mean tasks of a shop- keeper, runs his department as cheaply as pos- sible, is heckled over wages, fettered with ac- counts—the price of raw material, the problems of labor, the wages of charwomen, the cost of coke. Every stupid thing he has to do but the thing he alone can do and ought alone to be doing. That’s England’s way with her men of science; and so we find more brain power of the highest order wasted here than in any other civilized country on earth.” Sir Bruce—an old civil servant—was able to confirm this indictment. “I should like to contradict you if I could,” he said bluntly. “But you are not far wrong. A Government demands results, sublimely indiffer- ent to the causes which produce effects. Scien- tific research is ignored very grossly here, as elsewhere. Far deeper problems, of a moral na- ture, arise out of the situation than you guess, however.” “Very likely,” answered Strossmayer. “But the first thing is to be practical and build up a basis of wealth and prosperity for our naked, new- born Jugo-Slavia. We proceed accordingly and feel no fear for our morals. It should be easy for a prosperous and educated people to be moral; not so easy for a hungry and illiterate nation.” THE NEW MEMBER 25 He rattled on with sublime confidence in his ideals and then, looking at his watch, rose, made a very charming and comprehensive bow and left us. The impressions he created were, upon the whole, unfavorable, and I think only Jacobs and myself were in any sort attracted by the man. We recognized an agile mind, abundant enthu- siasm, and a personality unfamiliar and beyond our experience. But with that none quarreled. It was the stranger’s ironical attitude toward our country that annoyed most of us. “To suggest that his semi-barbaric nation is wiser than we are, and proposes to take a saner course, can only be called offensive nonsense,” declared General Fordyce. ” “These astute foreigners have all got a bad streak,” added Merrivale Medland. “I meet them in Spain and Portugal every year, and I know their little ways. I don’t say he’s a wrong 'un; but I’m not frightened, and I’m certainly not going to be down-hearted because Jugo-Slavia, or any other little rubbish heap, offers well paid work to our young men who specialize in ‘Stinks.” ” General Fordyce applauded these British sen- timents; his brother did not. “We found the chemists to win the war, and shall we not find the chemists to win the peace?” asked Jack Smith. “A very pertinent question,” answered Sir Bruce, “for when the radio-activity that lies in hiding comes actually within our reach and we CHAPTER III WHAT HAS DONE IT? IT was the third evening after the introduction of Paul Strossmayer to our little circle, that poor Alexander Skeat had honored us with his company at dinner—and lectured us afterwards. For that is the only way to describe his minatory harangue. He treated us like a parcel of rather unsatisfac- tory children and, for my part, I doubted not that to his luminous and far-reaching mind the bulk of his fellow men appeared little removed from the immaturity of youth. Indeed we should have all conceded the point, if he had not been at such rather ill-bred pains to rub it in. As Bishop Blore said, “Most men know well enough that they are mediocre; but they resent being told so by superior and scornful strangers.” I recollect that Mr. Skeat was troubled about the art of the country, and he cursed it in good set terms. Art was a subject whereon we were very willing to learn, and though General For- dyce, his brother and others paid no great atten- tion, a dozen members—Jacobs and myself in- cluded—listened with interest and found the famous publicist convincing and suggestive. It was left for our latest comer, Mr. Strossmayer, to turn the monologue into a discussion when he 27 28 NUMBER 87 asked civilly but pointedly, why Art, in the mind of the visitor, shut out all greater present de- mands and immediate needs. Skeat had just flouted Nature with hearty con- tempt. “If she can be personified in human terms, then only a lunatic would applaud her hideous manifes- tations,” he said, “since she destroys with one hand what she creates with the other. To Art we must look for any rational interpretation of Na- ture, or human nature either.” “But where are Art’s rational interpretations?” asked Strossmayer. “Surely art is dead, or shall we say in a state of suspended animation? The hard times have killed it. Only minor poets twit- ter; the painters have rushed pell-mell into a blind alley, whence there is no escape save by the way back to Nature and her forms, which on the whole are more beautiful than any they attempt to make; music is in the hands of faddists and be- comes as bodiless as dead wine; only the imitators of Tchekov and Ibsen exist as serious dramatists; while the novelists are all bogged in psycho-analy- sis, which is a pathological rather than an artistic advance. So why not give weary Art a rest until wide-awake Science has had her say? Then, when Art is convalescent again, with a normal tempera- ture and clear vision, she may find the world a place ripe for a new renaissance worthy of decent men and decent art.” “Idiot!” cried Alexander Skeat furiously. “Do you not understand that only through cleansing torrents and cathartic hurricanes of art the world WHAT HAS DONE IT? 29 can ever again become a place for anybody—de- cent or otherwise—to live in?” He thundered on for full ten minutes, while his heavy eyebrows and bristling moustache vibrated with his emotion and his great jaw, like a bull- dog's, seemed to grow squarer and Squarer. He deluged us and the Jugo-Slav in a storm of hur- tling and ferocious words; and finally challenged Strossmayer to elaborate his opinions. His anger was doubtless in part theatrical, but when the for- eigner described his own views and purposes, the- ories of applied science and ambitions to forward that application, Skeat became still more incensed. “I shall oppose you heart and soul!” he prom- ised. “I shall make public your pretensions and warn our young men to resist your malignant ap- peals. We are not yet a people to be suborned with Balkan gold.” “As a guest member of this club I speak to you; and you, too, are a guest member for this evening, therefore I have a right to demand con- fidence,” replied Strossmayer quietly. ‘‘I never listen to anybody in confidence,” an- swered Skeat. “I am no longer a man. I am a European institution, and it is my function to sur- vey the world from the watch-tower of my own abnormal intelligence and proclaim my discoveries and opinions in all ears. These are perilous times for civilization, as I point out daily, and no man who approaches me must imagine the least respect for his intentions, or privacy for his plans. On your own showing you would rob the United King- dom of an asset—an asset which I take leave to 30 NUMBER 87 observe you grossly over-value—for not by the road of Science and Reason shall man rise to the light, since Art and the Divine Afflatus are to be masters of the world. But nevertheless you do active wrong to tempt our youth, just as you err to suppose that the brute forces concealed in Na- ture will ever conquer man. It is a debased ideal and I shall fulminate against you.” Paul Strossmayer did not answer. He was an- noyed and a flame lit his dark eyes for a moment; but he kept himself in hand and permitted Skeat to discuss another subject. Somebody—I think the bishop — discussed wealth, and Skeat took him up. “I despair of showing people how to use wealth,” he said. “They think because I choose to be poor, that I cannot possibly be an authority.” “Nobody knows how to use wealth,” asserted General Fordyce, and for once the visitor found himself in agreement. “Probably you are right, and the most well- meaning are among our deepest failures,” he answered. “Your Rockefellers and Carnegies do their best, as I honestly think; but their best is vitiated by domestic predilections and supersti- tions. Such men cannot remotely vision what belongs to the best. The problem is how, with increasing raw material—namely wealth—to turn it into that immaterial and precious finished prod- uct we understand by happiness.” “But if wealth cannot produce individual hap- piness, as every millionaire knows, how are we WHAT HAS DONE IT? 31 to turn it into universal happiness?” asked Leon Jacobs. “By transforming it into human sympathy and understanding,” answered Skeat. “Wealth ad- mittedly puts the mind above a certain sort of primitive want. It wins security for the candle- stick of the body, and enables us to turn our attention to the light of the soul, which should burn before all men from that candlestick. Hav- ing secured for the mass of humanity physical conditions long familiar to every pet dog, we proceed—” “To what?” asked Strossmayer, who had bided his time. “To Art.” The Jugo-Slav shook his head. “Not so,” he answered. “Not so, Mr. Alex- ander Skeat. To Science we must turn for the true application of wealth, just as we must look to Science for the creation of it.” “Pure Science is a selfless activity—the highest and noblest upon which a man’s mind can con- centrate,” declared Jacobs. Strossmayer applauded him and continued. “What we in Jugo-Slavia want, is a develop- ment of social science, inspired by the new pos- sibilities, and a scientific application of the new wealth now being wickedly and fruitlessly squan- dered around us. The power of wealth is still terrific, and far the greater part is running to waste, even as the heat of the sun, or the forces of the tides.” “The wisdom of school children,” retorted 32 NUMBER 87 Skeat, “and to attempt to make you comprehend is vain, since you have not yet reached the start- ing point of reality, that only spirit quickeneth.” He rose then, declared that he must catch his train, enveloped himself in a great cloak and chal- lenging hat, and prepared to depart. “Read me,” he said to Jacobs and myself as he bade us farewell. “Read me humbly; read what I have written; read with the determination to understand. Much you will not; much you may.” A week later, some of us were dining with General Fordyce at his private house, and the death of Skeat occupied our thoughts to the ex- clusion of all other subjects. Indeed there were probably not a dozen intelligent men met together in England, or the Continent, who did not find the mystery absorb their minds. Two prime considerations challenged mankind: first the manner of this departure and secondly the signifi- cance of Alexander Skeat himself as a force in the affairs of humanity. |Upon the second problem I recollect that Leon Jacobs spoke while the general’s dinner party was in progress. There were present our host and his brother, Merrivale Medland, Bishop Blore, Jacobs and myself. “I don’t think it matters a button to the world whether he was in it or not,” said Leon. “I speak impartially and recognize his genius. But, as a man, we have seen with our own eyes that he was absurdly vain, ill-mannered and discourte- ous. As an intellectual force he was a bully, and WHAT HAS DONE IT? 33 for his success relied on satire—a poor vehicle for preaching at best.” “Even so judged,” declared the bishop, “Pope or Voltaire, Swift or Anatole France excel him both in art and poignancy.” “He destroyed, but created nothing,” continued Jacobs. “And, after all, what do his lectures and books amount to? What is the sum total of his message? Only that most people are born fools; which we knew already.” I contested this sweeping criticism and endeav- ored to show how Skeat had influenced modern thought; but none supported me and General Fordyce pointed out that the dead man had always stood outside life and been contented to laugh at the show from a comfortable seat in the audi- torium. “His real value and significance cannot be judged by his own generation,” declared Med- land, “and whether he will interest the next is exceedingly doubtful. Most likely the principal attraction that he will offer is the manner of his death; and I, for one, by no means discredit the policeman’s description of a strange beast. There’s no smoke without fire, and the creature known as a vampire didn’t win its universal fame through superstition alone. Be sure there’s some- thing in it. A skeptical generation wants shaking up, and to be reminded that there are more things, even on earth still, than are dreamed of in our philosophy.” We chaffed the wine merchant, who was ad- dicted to spiritualism and of a credulous mind in 34 NUMBER 87 everything except his own business; but General Fordyce reminded us how Medland stood not alone in his belief, that some unknown animal might, after all, be responsible for the extraor- dinary wound by which Skeat had perished. Policeman Syme’s description of a huge bird, or bat, seen dimly through the midnight murk of the park obtained a certain measure of credence; for the vulpine smell, reported by four other independent witnesses beside himself, suggested a possibility of some monstrous, flying reptile, or mammal, failing any more plausible explanation. We challenged Sir Bruce, as an authority sec- ond to none, upon the subject, and, to my surprise, he did not express himself with any certainty. He was guarded, but preserved an open mind. “You know more about bats and such creatures than any living man, Sir Bruce,” said Bishop Blore. “Can you conceive of the possibility of Some survival from geological days reappearing in the twentieth century?” “So stated, the phenomena sound more mad than ever,” declared Jacobs; but the man of sci- ence showed no impatience before the fantastic problem. “Common sense naturally inclines one to laugh the proposition out of court,” he said; “but reason is always guarded, and because a thing on the face of it looks grotesque, impossible, or absurd, Science will not be contented to leave it at that. Much appears grotesque and absurd from a human point of view, which in itself is perfectly rational, logical and seemly. The deep- WHAT HAS DONE IT? 35 sea creatures have faces that are hideous, or absurd, in the eyes of unthinking man, or child. I remember myself, in tender youth, finding a crab in a pool, whose countenance haunted me and produced nightmares for six weeks. Yet it was without doubt a face perfectly adapted to the requirements of the bearer. The face of an octopus appears to us beyond measure sinister and forbidding. We loathe its parrot beak and cold, inhuman eye; but only because it is in another category of creation than our own and its man- ner of life and method of taking food repulse us. A spider is no more horrible. “I am not prepared entirely to discard the possible existence of living beings outside our own experience and as yet unreported in nature. There have always been giants in the world of unconscious life, as there have been among human beings; and we know that only recently rumors have reached Science, from out-of-the-way regions in central Africa and South America, of gigantic living creatures—possible survivals of prehistoric forms. There may be life in the uttermost depths of the sea, in the equatorial jungles, and in remote polar regions, as yet undiscovered by man. It is not contrary to reason to suspect that much; nor is it wholly beyond possibility that some individual of an unknown species might break from its environment and appear for the first time to conscious eyes. Such achievement would of course be easier for a winged mammal, or reptile, than any other creature.” Medland was delighted. 36 NUMBER 87 “If we believers in a dragon have you on our side—” he began, but Sir Bruce stopped him. “You must not say that I am on your side. Every reasonable supposition points to a con- trary conclusion from yours; and in any case we may very safely suspend judgment; for, Suppos- ing that this is not a phantom of the policeman’s imagination, but a living thing, what follows?” “It follows that the beggar was hungry, per- haps, and didn’t kill poor Skeat for wickedness, but supper,” suggested General Fordyce. “Exactly, Hugh,” replied his brother. “As- suming that we deal with an animal, then we must suppose the brute was hunting for food. It strikes down its prey—sublimely unaware of the distinguished fellow creature it has destroyed — and is about to make its meal when interrupted.” “Just what I think,” declared Medland. “That’s my theory. The thing kills Skeat in some peculiar way, by a sort of stab with a beak or claw, and then is going to devour him, or far more likely suck his blood. For everything points to a vampire. But I go farther and ask who is to say that the creature is not controlled by a discarnate human will that inhabits it?” We laughed loudly; while Medland, who was read in all manner of mediaeval nonsense on this subject, poured chapter and verse into our ears. “One would think that you had been on intimate terms with vampires,” I said. Then Leon Jacobs asked a question. “To come back from fairy tales to facts—what, if anything, is known about blood-sucking animals, WHAT HAS DONE IT? 37 Sir Bruce? One has heard, of course, of vampire bats, but do such things exist in reality? And if so, have they been known to touch a human being? Medland vows his mass of evidence must stand for more than myth; but you cannot winnow grain out of chaff alone—however large the quantity of chaff. What is the truth on the sub- ject?” “Bats there certainly are that suck blood,” admitted Sir Bruce, “and other bats, of more ferocious appearance and greater size, that have an evil reputation which they never earned. Vampyrus spectrum, the false vampire, and others belonging to the genus phyllostoma are per- fectly harmless, “leaf-nosed’ bats from South America. The true vampires are also South American. Their incisors and canine teeth are modified for flesh cutting; their stomachs are small and their intestines short and not adapted for any other food than blood. There is, however, no mystery about the way these vamparines feed, and I must record one unfortunate fact: the most famous and authentic bloodsucker of man, Des- modus rufus, a red-brown, tailless bat, is only three inches long—one of the smallest species. Its bite carries no venom and is less dangerous than that of a rat.” “We certainly cannot imagine a specimen of Desmodus rufus swelled to the size of a bullock,” said Bishop Blore. Then he continued. “One thing is pretty obvious. If the creature exists, food he must certainly eat, and if his provender depends upon other animals, we shall 38 NUMBER 87 hear of him again before long. In the event of such a monster appearing among us, it will demand not merely a pint of blood occasionally, but pretty deep draughts. It follows that we shall meet the wretch again tolerably soon; and if we do not, then we may agree with the majority—that no such abominable thing has in reality been seen.” “And the manner of Skeat's death would then be illuminated,” declared Merrivale Medland. “I mean if other victims occur; for then we shall probably learn what is the cause and nature of this strange wound and end by catching the bat itself. Already the creature may have killed sheep, or cattle in lonely places and drunk its fill.” We laughed again at the wine merchant’s idea, and ere long the party broke up. Medland and the bishop went one way, while Jacobs and I saw Sir Bruce to his bungalow, which stood on the hillside in its own small grounds. It was a build- ing of one story with a flat roof, partly glazed, and in summertime we often spent an evening on the top of it under awnings; for an observ- atory with a good equatorial telescope occupied one end, Sir Bruce being an amateur astronomer among his other activities. He spoke as we went along of Medland’s credu- lity and sighed for human nature, that so willingly preserved its legends and follies sprung from the childhood of mankind. “Education cannot kill what most of us learn at our mother’s knees,” he said. “That is the WHAT HAS DONE IT? 39 receptive period, and just in the vital years, when reason should be honored, we load the infant mind with supernatural nonsense, which unhap- pily sticks in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. A really reasonable man might appear to most of us almost as inhuman as the octopus of which we spoke; for his attitude to life would infallibly be guided by ideals and arguments still foreign to our best hopes. Reason is stifled and choked off at every turn.” “You can trust no man to be reasonable,” admitted Jacobs, “though, no doubt, each of us imagines himself to be the most reasonable person on earth.” “In nothing does our unreason more appear than in our private opinion of ourselves,” con- fessed Sir Bruce. Then we left him at his door and went homeward to the bachelor diggings we shared. No light was thrown upon the death of Alex- ander Skeat, and nothing further heard of the chimera assumed to have destroyed him. Chemi- cal analysis showed a prodigious alteration in the constituents of the dead man’s blood and revealed a mineral substance, akin to one of the radio-active elements, developed in it; but the reason for such an extraordinary change was hidden, and what had entered by the thread-like orifice to destroy life, science could not detect. Rumors came that the apparition of a flying monster had been seen both in Surrey and in Yorkshire; yet investigation ended in nothing trustworthy. Meantime London felt no alarm, 40 NUMBER 87 while maintaining an active interest for longer than it condescends, as a rule, to devote to any solitary sensation. Everybody supposed that Skeat would have left a direction to be cremated; therefore, since he never conformed to public opinion and delighted to refute general con- clusions, he had done no such thing. His relations buried him at Kensal Green, and the greatest liv- ing sculptor declined to design the tomb, because Skeat had insulted him during the previous year. Londoners were said to walk less in the parks after dark; but if that were true of certain nervous individuals, it certainly did not apply to the mass, who make the green spaces of the metropolis their thoroughfares. The actual spot where Skeat had fallen and the neighboring region from which the flying monster was declared to have ascended were subject to intelligent scrutiny; but not a clue of any sort rewarded it. John Syme had vowed the creature hopped twice, and if his narrative were true, it appeared probable that some mark of the opera- tion must surely appear; but no trace of any im- press was recorded on the winter herbage, and the detectives, together with the public at large, soon regarded the alleged apparition as a feat of imagination on the constable’s part. It was left to a later date to restore credence in Policeman Syme and reawaken the curiosity and alarm of the metropolis. CHAPTER IV THE ALBERT MEMORIAL NoTHING is more puzzling to me than the attitude of a man to his friend’s friend. I have often wondered why people for whom I entertained the greatest regard, and who reciprocated my attach- ment as heartily, should yet number among their closest companions and confidants somebody else whom I detested. And my friends have observed the same phenomenon in connection with myself. Doubtless we are all built up in different facets and echo different flashes from our fellow crea- tures. Thus, when Leon Jacobs began to develop an active understanding and comradeship with the Jugo-Slav, Paul Strossmayer, I was not indeed perturbed or jealous — but the fact caused me to wonder. The comradeship did not extend to much beyond conversation at the club, for both men were exceedingly busy and their operations lay in different directions; but a certain quality of mind was common to both : they found them- selves reflecting life from the same angle and each, I think, was eminently endowed with that faculty of reason, the lack of which in human affairs, Sir Bruce Fordyce so often and so feel- ingly deplored. Nor did I myself find Strossmayer antipathetic, for the judgment of Leon Jacobs was good enough 41 42 NUMBER 87 for me; but I never understood the stranger as well, or shared his ideals so fully as did Leon. My insular bent of mind preserved an element of doubt and suspense concerning him until we became far better acquainted, and though I never shared the dislike and suspicion openly expressed at the Club of Friends behind Strossmayer’s back in the light of subsequent events, I was not at first prepared to champion Strossmayer through thick and thin, as Jacobs did. The man certainly challenged us, and it was hard to feel indifferent towards him. Indeed the majority disliked him for his self-assertion—a trait always offensive to the average Englishman —and as time passed I was constrained to mark that, despite his plea for reason, Sir Bruce shared to the full his brother’s concealed aversion to- wards the new member. I think, perhaps unconsciously, the warning of dead Alexander Skeat influenced some of us. He had hated Strossmayer, and there is no doubt that Jack Smith and possibly others grew in time to associate the foreigner with Skeat's death. As a matter of fact, so far as his comments and opinions on the subject went, Paul Strossmayer appeared absolutely indifferent to the end of the great publicist. He merely reiterated a former opinion, that Skeat was better dead than alive, and he took no part in my hearing upon the interminable discussions of the mystery that fol- lowed; but then happened another sensation that banished the death of Skeat from men’s minds, and London gasped before such a wonder as it 44 NUMBER 87 It was as though the Albert Memorial had been lifted bodily from its roots in the earth, set in some gigantic mortar and brayed to powder, then poured out again upon the original site. All London visited the gray pile next morning and a thousand explanations of this extraordinary metamorphosis occupied men's minds. The energy responsible for the change had worked within limits clearly defined. It had operated as smoothly as the cut of a knife. There was no surrounding disturbance. A few adjacent trees were burned as to their nearest boughs by the great heat produced by this instantaneous disintegration, but no evidences of explosive matter marked the scene. Only a little mountain of fine dust towered in place of the familiar monument, and a pre- liminary scientific assumption received universal acceptation. It was quite clear that energies beyond all experience had produced these results. They resembled in no way those created by the highest explosives as yet discovered and applied; nor did their operation place them in the same category with any known power. They worked differently and liberated an infinitely greater volume of force. Whether the stroke had come from earth or air none could assert; but Science held that air had freed the energy and rained it directly down upon the doomed memorial. Examination of the elemental dust of stone and metal to which all had been reduced, revealed a startling chemical fact. The material had suffered radical changes. The force directed against it was responsible, not only for turning all into the THE ALBERT MEMORIAL 45. smallest constituent particles; but had actually modified the matter, imparting novel attributes that neither stone nor metal before possessed. It was left for the genius of a foreigner to link this extraordinary circumstance with another, and I shall return to the point in a moment. First, however, one must record the impression conveyed and the emotion awakened in London by the event. ‘Catastrophe’ it can hardly be called, for no actual public regret was expressed by any journal or man of authority. Indeed artists openly rejoiced in the disappearance of the memorial, and a tentative proposal to rebuild it on the old model received no support from any responsible person. But the smaller question of the thing itself was entirely lost in the larger one of the reason for its disappearance; for all men felt that what mattered was not the vanished object, but the unknown powers that had caused it to vanish. The discussion centered upon one point. Was the world faced with a deliberate manifestation of consciously directed action; or did it behold the accidental effect of some physical phenom- enon? Had some wandering vehicle of huge radio-activity penetrated our atmosphere and struck by chance, or was the incident the work of intelligent beings? The general opinion, the wish being father to the hope, no doubt, inclined to a belief that an aérolite of great size had reached earth and liberated thereon properties of matter as yet only in the dawn of their human discovery; but a more highly educated conclusion opposed this belief and very definitely declared 46 NUMBER 87 the destruction of the monument to be a work of conscious beings. Some of these inquirers (in- spired by ingenious works of fiction) went so far as to affirm possible interference from extra-ter- restrial causes; but the more reasonable thinkers suspected that human agency must be responsi- ble—an opinion hardly less disturbing than the other. The humorous aspect of the event was not ignored, and I recollect that, within our own cir- cle, Jacobs pointed out the discrepancy between the prodigious powers marshalled to destroy the Albert Memorial and the insignificant object itself. “It is as though somebody had taken a fifteen- inch gun to shoot a rabbit,” he said; and it was upon the same occasion, at the club, that an increasing interest and divergence of opinions upon the subject of Paul Strossmayer were ad- vanced in the one case and widened in the other, by himself. We had not seen him since the inci- dent in Hyde Park; but perceived, when he did reappear among us, that he had taken it far more to heart than any Englishman. He was tremen- dously impressed by what had happened; and he was also depressed, for he told us frankly that, in his opinion, certain unknown persons had stolen a march upon him, his friends and their hopes. “I need not trouble you with my own fears,” he said, in answer to a question, “but I may say that my ‘super-chemist,’ as I call him, shares my view. Ian Noble believes that a tremendous secret advance has been made along the line of radio-active research, and he suspects that this apparently senseless operation is no more than THE ALBERT MEMORIAL 47 a private experiment with a newly discovered energy.” “Then why such a senseless and mischievous outrage?” asked General Hugh Fordyce. “I know nothing of art, but the Albert Memorial stood for something far more important than art. It commemorated a famous and dignified personage—a royal character of whom nothing but good can be spoken. Moreover he was the grandfather of the reigning monarch, and there is, therefore, an element of disloyalty in such a performance that must make any decent man prefer to believe that it happened by chance and was an accident. If otherwise, then an enemy to England is responsible.” “Be sure those that did this thing were not concerned with the memory of the late Prince Albert,” replied Strossmayer. “Very probably they never heard of him. We cannot tell whence they come, or what their purposes are. Ian Noble inclines to believe that they are in our midst; and he takes a grave view of the event, for it is clear that these people are concealing their dis- covery from the rest of civilization. In any case he suspects that we shall not be left long in doubt.” We argued the point and Bishop Blore was very positive that no conscious agency would be found responsible. “In a sense,” he said, “we may regard the mystery as on all fours with that which preceded it and is already nearly forgotten. I mean the death of Alexander Skeat. As Sir Bruce pointed 48 NUMBER 87 out in that connection, had some actual, living, but unconscious, thing destroyed the man, it could only have done so for its own needs and to satisfy the physical craving of hunger. In that case it must have been heard of again quickly. But it has not been heard of again, and we justly assume, therefore, that “the Bat,’ as the newspapers called it, was a myth. The same position is created here. If this is the work of men who have become possessed of new knowledge, then they will not stop at this childish performance. It is now some days since the monument in Hyde Park was destroyed, but we have not heard of any similar disaster. Therefore I cherish a growing conviction that this event is natural and offers us a glimpse into some operations of nature denied the world until the present time. Tre- mendous energy has descended from space, and chance directed it upon England, upon London, upon Hyde Park, upon the Albert Memorial. It entered our atmosphere—this foreign body—from limitless space and braved the perils of combus- tion, or may have largely suffered from them. Yet no great fire ball, or shooting star, or other celestial visitor was reported. We may assume, then, that this aggregation of unknown matter— this unfamiliar element launched upon us—found the atmosphere harmless to affect it. The mass —it may have been great—it may have been small —strikes an object composed of terrestrial mate- rial—marble and metal—and instantly it trans- forms all to dust.” “And more than that,” added Jack Smith, “it THE ALBERT MEMORIAL 49 transmutes these familiar things and imparts to them a quality which was not there before.” Some agreed with the bishop, and I confess my inclination made me do so, since only along a line of natural interpretation lay peace of mind for humanity. We were left in suspense and Strossmayer declared again that such suspense would be of short duration. Bishop Blore's the- ory reduced him to silence for a while; but, as he confessed afterwards, it did in reality something very significant and flashed a light into his mind which took the shape of a letter to The Times. At the moment, however, he gave no sign of his inspiration. We asked him concerning his “super-chemist” and he was apparently quite frank upon that subject. Indeed the Jugo-Slav’s candor always inclined Jacobs and myself towards him. We believed in it from the first—especially Leon Jacobs; but Medland, General Fordyce, Sir Bruce and Bishop Blore declared that Stross- mayer’s ingenuous attitude was assumed delib- erately and by no means represented the real man. They held it a mask—a stalking-horse of unreal- ity—behind which he pursued his own purposes. For they reminded us that the stranger did not always choose to be artless and had a convenient way of failing sometimes to hear a pertinent ques- tion. Their suspicions, indeed, gained ground and point during subsequent events and Strossmay- er’s letter to The Times which appeared two days later, while it strengthened my conviction that he was honest, served to establish opposite conclu- sions in the minds of most of us. For the moment Paul Strossmayer spoke of Ian 50 NUMBER 87 Noble in response to our questions. He praised the young man’s genius and declared that he was already on the track of great discoveries. He also temporarily disarmed doubt by promising to bring Noble to the club upon a future evening. “If you are not tired of great men—for a great man he is—I shall invite him to dinner presently,” he promised. “And then you will meet a rare personality, one, as I believe, destined to future honors and distinction—in Jugo-Slavia.” We promised his protégé a hearty welcome, and after Strossmayer’s departure again debated the foreigner’s puzzling personality. Merrivale Medland committed himself to a strong suspicion and, to my surprise, Sir Bruce and the bishop supported him. “The man’s a humbug and thinks he’s fooling us,” declared our wine merchant with conviction. “What’s more, I believe he knows a great deal about this business—perhaps all about it.” ‘‘Time will probably show,” admitted Sir Bruce. “I do not like the man for this reason: he is a gross materialist. His ambitions are mean and he is concerned only for Jugo-Slavia and himself. Despite certain feeble protestations to the contrary, he is not moved by any enthusiasm for humanity at large; and did he and his scientific slaves really hit upon those latent radio-active energies presently destined to transform the face of the world and make, or mar, civilization, I do not for a moment believe that he and his im- mature and backward people could be trusted to employ it for the welfare of all. They would use THE ALBERT MEMORIAL 51 it to erect a barrier of personal advantage be- tween themselves and mankind. They would seek to put themselves on a pedestal, threaten all other nations and exploit their discovery to the dis- advantage of their neighbors and the world at large.” “One cannot forget that Alexander Skeat, who, whatever else he may have been, was a profound student of human nature, warned us very forcibly against Strossmayer. We have Granger’s word for it,” said Bishop Blore. “He certainly said so,” I replied. “Both Jacobs and I heard him. We set it down to a personal animosity, because Paul Strossmayer did not fear to contradict him.” “But you have to remember also,” Jacobs reminded them, “that Strossmayer has often spoken of all men in a friendly and kindly spirit. He is a patriot, I grant; but one can admit no di- rect word fairly creating a suspicion that Stross- mayer would ‘exploit” a discovery, as Sir Bruce says, to the disadvantage of other nations, even though he might naturally desire his own people should gain first and principal advantage.” “For that matter, Sir Bruce,” I asked, “sup- posing that the energy were really ready and waiting for the world, into whose hands would you place it with absolute conviction that you were doing well and wisely?” “A tremendous question,” answered Jacobs. “No question at all,” replied General Hugh. “My dear fellow, can there be a shadow of doubt as to the reply? Emphatically England, and Eng- 52 NUMBER 87 land alone, could be trusted with such a terrific responsibility. If you want an analogy, look at the Seven Seas. To whom could the dominion of the ocean be entrusted but ourselves? None but a fool entertains two opinions.” We laughed at our archaic friend and reminded him of the Washington Conference; but he held it no laughing matter; and then, two days later, our interest was aroused by the Jugo-Slav’s let- ter to The Times. It did a thing as yet not done, and directly linked the death of Alexander Skeat with the destruction of the Albert Memorial. I transcribe this important communication, for those best able to judge considered it a valuable statement, calculated to throw considerable light on the problem, now conflicting with other and more vital social difficulties that disturbed Eng- land. [To the Editor, The Times] “SIR: One aspect of the singular occurrence in Hyde Park should be the subject of special exami- nation. And as such a line of inquiry may prove fruitful, I venture to propose it. “Briefly I am of opinion that some connection exists between the death of Mr. Alexander Skeat and the destruction of the memorial to the late Prince Consort; and my reason for this suspicion will be found on examination of the details in each case. For what do we learn? The monument and the man were alike obliterated by some un- familiar means, and while the remains of the work of art bear testimony not only to destruction 54 NUMBER 87 motive can be established between the murder of Skeat (if murder it be) and the downfall of the monument, we may have to wait for further mani- festations before it is possible to prove deliberate purpose. “In connection with the unknown properties of the radio-active elements still to be discovered, I may conclude with a brief reference to one famous product already known and employed. Spectrum analysis revealed its existence before any of its properties were appreciated and still much con- cerning them is doubtful; but one thing appears established. In all radio-active changes two ultimate products appear: helium and lead. Chemists have established the existence of lead in the blood of Mr. Skeat and in the dust of the monument. Of radium, the best known radio- active element, the story is fairly familiar; but few of the intelligent public yet appear to be aware that helium, which can be easily produced in vast quantities, has already been harnessed to the service of man. Having discovered the ex- istence of this element in the sun, Science began to hunt for it on earth, and was speedily rewarded. Palmieri found traces in the lava of Vesuvius; Hillebrand, in the United States, extracted small quantities from a rare mineral, and in 1895, Sir William Ramsay also found it. Yet, until 1918, but a few cubic yards of helium had been col- lected. This was, however, enough to determine its qualities and prove that, after hydrogen, helium furnished the lightest gas known to Science, and—a greater asset—that it was non-inflammable THE ALBERT MEMORIAL 55 and non-explosive. These facts may possibly throw light on the event in Hyde Park. Subse- quently vast stores of helium gas were discovered amid the mineral products of Alberta and New Brunswick, and means invented for their extrac- tion and purification. Ten million cubic feet of helium can now be annually obtained from Alberta alone—a quantity sufficient to keep at least two large airships in regular commission. “Here, then, is one mighty available force familiar already to Science, and who shall declare that some other and still more tremendous energy has not already been discovered by the mind of man and revealed in the recent extraordinary occurrences? Unknown states of matter of course exist, and the conditions and properties of even familiar elements under those states—e.g., of extreme heat, or cold—offer rich ground of research as yet unexplored. “Faithfully yours, “PAUL STRossMAYER. “(Of the Jugo-Slavia Commission.)” This letter excited a good deal of interest and elicited considerable correspondence, though it led to nothing practical in connection with the mysteries responsible for it. Various learned men agreed with Strossmayer; others differed from him; but in many minds he certainly suc- ceeded in connecting the two disasters. Inquiry along that line, however, threw no light whatever on the agents of either, and not a shadow of clue 56 - NUMBER 87 rewarded the professional exertions of the police, or the amateur activities of many individuals. There remained only the voice of Science, to prove those curious atomic transmutations of the destroyed substances in man and stone already recorded. As for the effect of Strossmayer’s letter upon our little community at the Club of Friends, it did not serve to change opinion, but if anything, increased the suspicion generally entertained against him. “He would not know so much, if he did not know a great deal more,” declared General Fordyce. “Rest assured his letter is merely bluff —a blind to distract suspicion from himself.” “So I think,” added Merrivale Medland. “There appears no method in his madness yet; but wait and see.” “While we are waiting he may overrun civili- zation,” declared Bishop Blore. “It is a grave question in my mind, whether we should not impart our suspicions to the authorities and at least put the man under surveillance.” “What on earth could we say?” I asked; and Sir Bruce agreed with me, that no reasonable ground existed for such a step. “I, too, distrust and dislike him,” he confessed; “but for reasons profoundly different from your own, Bishop. I do not suspect that Strossmayer is responsible for these operations; but I do think he may be on the track of a vast unknown energy capable of overturning civilization, as you suggest. And did such awful power fall into his THE ALBERT MEMORIAL 57 hands, I am convinced that he would put it to no altruistic or honorable purpose. That I be- lieve; but I also believe that he and his friends have not yet reached the goal, and heartily I hope they may never do so.” CHAPTER V JOSEPH ASHLAR EvenTs which now rose on the forefront of national politics, darkened the future and threat- ened to precipitate in storm the clouds long hang- ing heavily over our industrial progress and content. Their tragic promise banished every lesser consideration and it is not too much to say that the curious incidents already recorded had been entirely dismissed from thought by the mass of mankind, when a new sensation suddenly linked the social unrest of the hour with things already receding to forgetfulness in memory. In the welter of the times and the slow and diffi- cult readjustment of understanding and good will between Capital and Labor, dangers that had promised to dissolve suddenly increased ten thousand fold and society was plunged into ferment of doubt and fear by the threat of direct action from a key industry. It was the mightiest, weightiest threat that Gov- ernment had been called to face, and as a result of indifference to the well-known Bolshevist activi- ties, that had spent a hundred thousand pounds upon propaganda in the country and deluged every industrial center with undesirable aliens, often introduced under a crafty system of false passports, the ruling authority found itself at 58 JOSEPH ASHLAR 59 last within measurable distance of revolution—a revolution, moreover, not destined to follow demo- cratic lines, but such an upheaval as the usurper who reigned in Russia had openly indicated to his supporters of the United Kingdom. Other na- tions, more acutely alive to the awful peril, had set up barriers against it. Italy, France, Amer- ica were safe, thanks to the exertions of long- sighted and steadfast men; but England drifted steadily into the extremity of peril, and no hand was lifted to arrest or denounce one member of the industrious throng now working in secret for their master. Labor had entered upon a phase of assertion and dictation which could only end in one thing. Convinced that the nation, as a whole, was now alive to the hopeless futility of a Labor Govern- ment and conscious that pre-war ambitions in that direction might be dismissed from any practical scheme, Labor set forth to formulate demands that the other ranks of society could not concede save by an act of suicide. Absolute Trade Unionism was on its way to become uncrowned king and destroy the fabric of the Constitution; indeed men among its leaders, until now contented to advance their ideals by rocognized means of progress, abandoned their former attitude and openly declared that the ‘Constitution’ itself was an elastic term capable of wider interpretation and other values than those accorded to it in the past. The Prime Minister, the Hon. Erskine Owen, had undoubtedly encouraged this poisoning of 60 NUMBER 87 the fountainheads by the process of private in- terviews followed by public concessions, and at this moment, aware perhaps of the abyss above which he stood, Owen suddenly took a firm stand with the opposing forces. It was high time, yet his definite and final attitude had occasioned acute surprise among the representatives of Labor; and Joseph Ashlar, their protagonist, who bulked large in the public eye, found himself in a quan- dary. He had already claimed a victory of stu- pendous significance; but he had spoken too soon and now stood in a difficult position supported by his own side, but without any national sympathy. Joseph Ashlar was a demagogue of genius, sprung from the ranks of the Electrical Engi- neers. He had won immense concessions for his own trade and incidentally for others. He had already lessened the powers of Parliament and reached a point in his career when he believed the battle won. As in Russia the Duma had been destroyed by the Bolshevists and their Soviet system, so now in England the elected of the nation began to lose their authority under the ceaseless pressure of a resolute and remorseless trades unionism that leant steadily to the left. Things were come to a crisis, and upon no Question concerning his own union — upon no question directly involving Labor at all—Joseph Ashlar had thrown down the gauntlet. He stood proclaimed as a dictator for the whole of the work- ers, and he had chosen a subject for the chal- lenge well calculated to rally many independent interests to his side. Upon the general question JOSEPH ASEILAR 61 of British foreign administration, Ashlar de- manded and, of course, secured an opportunity for debate. The Foreign Estimates offered an occa- sion, and armed with the authority of Labor’s millions, Ashlar, who led his party in the House, declared the intention of calling a universal strike did the Government decline his demand to leave Mesopotamia and modify its control of India and Egypt. It was a deliberate intention to establish minor- ity rule, and England understood that no alter- native could be submitted. Battle had been joined once and for all, and many thinkers rejoiced that suspense was at last at an end and the long threatened trial had to be faced and fought. Then, upon the night before the giant trial, Joseph Ashlar perished suddenly. He resided at Battersea, and it was his custom at all seasons in the year to walk in the local park for half an hour, or longer, before retiring. A level path that ran near the ornamental waters was sacred to the great leader and had long been known in the district as ‘Ashlar's Walk.” And here, where he had perambulated and revolved his projects for many years, death overtook him. Just before nine o’clock on the evening before the vital debate, a policeman, upon his beat not far distant, heard a single loud cry and responded swiftly. He had already seen Joseph Ashlar pro- ceeding to his accustomed exercise, saluted him and given him “good night.” What followed ap- peared a repetition in almost every respect of the events that attended the tragedy in St. James’s 62 NUMBER 87 Park. The officer found the victim lying face downward beside the ornamental waters. His arms were stretched out and his cap had fallen into the lake. He was either dead, or unconscious, and as the policeman knelt, to lift him and satisfy himself that it was indeed the famous dema- gogue, he became sensible of an extraordinary, animal smell heavy in the air around him—the reek of some living, carnivorous creature. The fox-like odor emanated from no particular quar- ter and, lowering Ashlar to the ground again, the constable turned his lantern about him. It was a clear, starry night with frost in the air, but as yet no resultant fog. A clump of bamboos stood by the water’s edge at a distance of thirty yards behind the fallen man, and turning his light in this direction, the constable was aware of some dark object behind the thicket. He hastened to obtain a nearer view, then became conscious of a pair of large, fiery eyes at the height of a tall man, as he described it, watching him through the canes. He hesitated, but conceiving it his duty to proceed, did so, vigorously blowing his whistle at the same time. Now he distinctly saw a black mass “as large as a horse’ squatting in the bamboos. Above it was lifted a sloping head on a long neck and, from this, shone the luminous eyes of a living thing. It was clearly alarmed and made no effort to attack the constable. Instead, as he asserted, it laid back its ears and appeared to shorten its neck, then leapt forward twice, crunching the canes and splashing the mire in which they grew. JOSEPH ASHLAR 63 It now stood clear and, just as the sound of run- ning feet came with welcome to the policeman’s ear, the black monster opened a pair of wings and shot aloft. It zigzagged like a gigantic Snipe, and disappeared into the sky, leaving an odor behind it that overpowered the air for an hour. The constable declared that he heard no sound save the hiss of the air against the creature’s body. It was like the exaggerated stroke of a carrier pigeon’s wing. Otherwise, to use the watcher’s own words again, “it was silent as an Owl.” Turning to the fallen man, the police, for three were now upon the spot, lifted him and carried him to a seat. There seemed little doubt that he was dead, and they conveyed the inert, stal- wart body between them to the constabulary station. But a doctor could only pronounce life extinct, while subsequent examination repeated in every particular the extraordinary phenomena reported on the death of Alexander Skeat. The dictator of the people had been stabbed in the breast by some pin-point weapon which had penetrated to the lungs. A thread-like wound could be traced from his right nipple inwards; while subsequent chemical analysis proved a repetition of the changed constituents of every bone in Ashlar's body and a profound disorgani- zation of the flesh. Either some transmutation had taken place and matter pertaining to lead actually been created by the impact of the un- known energy, or else the energy itself had intro- 64 NUMBER 87 duced a mineral into the dead man’s tissue in a form outside all experience. That the latter theory was reasonable won denial from Science, and those best able to judge declared for trans- mutation. But such details occupied little general attention before the greater sensation of Joseph Ashlar's end and the reappearance of the noctur- nal monster already reported and derided. Now the few who had believed in ‘the Bat’ triumphed, and of our circle Merrivale Medland claimed attention and gave himself great airs for his faith. “Only an obstinate idiot can hold out longer,” he declared. “We have the word of the most skilful surgeons that the wound contains some sort of stuff deadly destructive to animal tissue, and that it is only of a thread-like nature, having length but no breadth. What known weapon could inflict such a wound? Even a hat pin would have created something more conspicuous. So it follows this vampire, as I believe it to be, has a natural weapon, perhaps a sting—perhaps a stabbing tongue—something with which it can instantly destroy its prey. But the poison so far evades analysis and, as we know, infusions of this infected blood produce death and similar symptoms in a milder form in inferior, hot-blooded animals. The cause of death in every case is immediate syncope; but the reason for such col- lapse cannot be explained any more than the operation of this unknown venom which causes it. Twice the creature has slain a victim, and twice been driven away the moment afterwards. Then JOSEPH ASHLAR 65 who can longer doubt that it kills to live, and will soon make a further attempt with better luck?” Yet many, of course, continued to doubt, for the destruction of Joseph Ashlar could not be con- sidered a coincidence, or any unpremeditated ac- tion, whatever the agent responsible for it. Not only did this murder serve to dispel the idea of chance, which had guided argument on both sides in the problem of Alexander Skeat, but by doing so, lifted the whole mystery on to a higher and more terrible plane. For this stroke indicated many things directly calculated to oppose the theory of some unknown matter accidentally loosed upon civilization. It indicated deliberation and purpose. Joseph Ashlar had been slain for very sufficient reasons, and a conscious hand was responsible for his destruction. Men, not an animal, had killed him. “The Bat’ merely con- fused the issue. The mystery from the first chal- lenged England far less shrewdly than the fact itself. That Joseph Ashlar was dead, on the eve of his great battle, appeared a more tremendous event than any details of his end. A wave of feeling swept the United Kingdom and a very ugly temper developed in the North. For the proletariat argued that this stroke was official—a direct retort to their own threat of direct action, and an indication that two, if necessary, could play the same game. The immediate effect at least proved salutary, for the extremists were cowed by the loss of Joseph Ashlar; the result of his death proved a definite setback for the “Red” Labor Party and fear crept into their councils. 66 NUMBER 87 Some return of peace marked the social situation and the threatened danger receded behind the horizon of politics for a season. But Joseph Ashlar's death awoke far deeper emotions than either of the mysteries that pre- ceded it. No light whatever could be thrown upon the event and no rational man for a moment sup- posed that the Government was responsible for this cowardly elimination of their first antagonist. London asked itself who next might be struck, and since no blow fell, people again veered to the opinion that only an extraordinary coincidence had destroyed these two prominent men. We threshed the subject to its dregs among us, I recollect, and Jack Smith it was who pointed out the amazing dilemma with which civilization now appeared to be faced. “You are forced to grant ‘the Bat,” if bat there be, is possessed of self-consciousness,” he de- clared, “for it is nonsense to imagine these assas- sinations were the work of a dumb and unreason- ing animal. Either it exists and knows what it’s doing, or else it is all nonsense and a figment of the mind in those who saw it. Either it seems to me that a being from some other sphere than earth is responsible for these things, or else we are up against a freak of imagination, repeated, by unconscious suggestion, in the constable who heard Ashlar's death cry; or a deliberate optical illusion—an elaborate conjuring trick, a phan- tom thing arranged to throw men off the scent and confuse those whose business it is to get to the bottom of the business and find out the real 68 NUMBER 87 large, and so much the better for this country, where the danger appears to be greatest. And whether it is human as I steadfastly believe, or super-human, as Smith suggests, so long as it is sound on economics, we shall not quarrel with its operations. If it helps the world to see that wealth is at the root of national prosperity, so much the better. One would think that the fact had been made apparent to the deaf and blind during the past two years; but the power now apparently interested in the question may do much to throw light. On the other hand, the un- known may be after something quite different that only time will reveal. It is at this moment apparently doing what I envy it the power to do; but we cannot predict the line of thought behind it, or guess how those who direct it design to pro- ceed. Ian Noble, my young chemist with genius, is asking himself the next step and wondering if it may presently be in our power, through our own work, which is advancing swiftly, to get in touch with it.” “What do you think, Sir Bruce?” I inquired, for the general’s brother had committed himself as yet to no theory of the problem. Tonight, however, he did so, though his idea failed to convince us. He took a view, as one might have expected, based on rational opinion. The old Indian discoursed of the poison of ser- pents and the immense difficulties opposed to Sci- ence in its study of these subtle essences. “I do not deny, or affirm,” he added after an exposition on the physical effects seen in the two JOSEPH ASHLAR 69 dead men. “I do not say that it was not a living creature beyond our experience, though in that case I should certainly imagine it terrestrial—a survival possibly liberated by some unheaval, or earthquake, or fluvial denudation in central Africa or America.” “In that case how would it withstand the rigors of our winter climate for a week?” asked Bishop Blore. “It might not, Bishop. The suggestion lessens the probability of a tropical or subtropical vis- itant; but there are vast temperate regions of which we know little also. The creature might not be equatorial, but polar.” “You believe in it, then?” asked Medland, well pleased to win a scientific supporter of distinction. But he was disappointed. “Most emphatically I do not believe in it,” re- plied Sir Bruce. “The idea strains credulity too painfully. I incline to a far more prosaic opinion. I suspect these men have suffered at the hands of their fellow men, and I suppose, therefore, the ap- parition of ‘the Bat’ to be a very real and material one. In a word I should suspect an airplane, or something of that kind, either actually con- trolled and operated by man, or embodying some new knowledge, obedient to new powers and capable of doing its work, though the actual agents may be miles away.” “A theory distinctly more improbable than the other,” declared the general. “No, no, Bruce, that really won’t do. You let your scientific im- agination run away with you.” 70 NUMBER 87 Paul Strossmayer, however, supported the learned man. He had already advanced the same view, and many people found in it the only pos- sible explanation consonant with reason. Before he spoke, however, Jacobs argued for a still more immaterial explanation and repeated his opinion that the image of the monster had never been real at all. “How do you account for the smell then?” asked Bishop Blore. “There is no shadow of doubt about the smell. Even grant the monster a shadow, or a subconscious suggestion handed from the first policeman, at Skeat's death, to the second, who discovered Ashlar, there still remains the vulpine stench, such as Sir Bruce has admitted might belong to some order of flying mammals.” “A bat—yes; but not a reptile,” interrupted Sir Bruce. “The smell is that of a warm-blooded creature, whose duration of life must be limited so far as we know. A snake, or flying saurian would not emit any such odor, if we judge by existing reptilia.” “Well, bat or lizard, the smell was reported by four men on the first occasion and three on the second. The smell cannot have been imagination and cannot have been produced by anything but a living animal.” “Your argument is worthless,” returned Sir Bruce, “for smell is purely a chemical question and means the liberation of certain gases and emanations. We can imitate all odors—sweet or foul—in the laboratory.” “And what is more,” struck in Strossmayer, JOSEPH ASHLAR 71 “we are in no position to speak with authority about this effluvium, seeing we are ignorant of the energy that produced it. How many noses had ever come in contact with the smell of petrol till the advent of the motor car? That this overpow- ering odor accidentally resembles a smell we associate with animal life is nothing at all. Do not your people humorously describe all chemistry as the making of “stinks’?” He waived this minor problem from us with his long hands as a thing of no practical account and resumed, his eyes on Sir Bruce. “Granted an airplane,” he said. “What fol- lows? Much more must certainly be granted, for if a mechanical flying vessel of some kind, then it is guided, controlled and driven by a force of which as yet no human record exists.” “Do you suggest a visitor from another planet?” asked Bishop Blore. “No, no; I only assert that no record exists. How do we know what is happening in the labora- tories of Europe, or America? We only know that since the Great War every eye is opened, that vis- tors and vanquished alike are straining along the road and exhausting every nerve to discover se- crets, which will not only ensure their own secur- ity for the future, but leave the rest of the world at their mercy.” “That may actually have been done,” said Jacobs. “It has been done—up to a point,” admitted Strossmayer. “The achievement may even be complete. At any rate there exists in some JOSEPH ASHLAR 73 rivale Medland, “though, for my part, nothing I have yet heard lessens my conviction that I am right.” “In any case,” I added, “it is less terrible to believe that men, like ourselves, are responsible, than to suppose that beings outside our knowledge have entered our atmosphere from another world, and are assaulting us from an angle of vision and a basis of opinion concerning which we know nothing.” “The absurdity of such an idea defeats it,” declared Jacobs. “Conscious beings from another planet would hardly arrive here to quarrel about the parish pump and “take sides’ in our industrial squabbles.” “We naturally fly from contemplation of any attack directed against us by beings from another world,” said Sir Bruce. “One has only to men- tion the possibility to see how human nature shud- ders at it. The idea of being approached by conscious creatures—differing from ourselves as much as we differ from familiar, unconscious crea- tures—plunges us into a train of thought which must be horrible in the measure of our own imagi- nation. Suppose, for example, that some marine order of crustaceans developed the power to think and determined to invade the land and destroy our civilization and ourselves in order that they might substitute what they conceived was better; can anything more fearful than such an encounter be imagined? They would turn their submarine re- sources upon us and attack us with weapons of which we should have no idea until they were em- 74 NUMBER 87 ployed; while we should retaliate and seek to make the sea uninhabitable for them. Peace, until one side had exterminated the other, seems un- thinkable, for this reason: that we should have no means of inter-communication. We might as easily imagine making a truce with a tiger, or other savage animal, as suppose that we could come to an understanding with these super-lob- sters from the depth of ocean.” The gruesome idea was elaborated, and Jacobs stoutly opposed Sir Bruce's assumption that no agreement would be within reach. “Granted the possession of intellect,” he said, “then, surely, a via media might be attained? Even now we have considered the possibility of signalling to Mars, by huge symbols which would indicate to that planet’s inhabitants how conscious beings dwell in this one. Surely, therefore, if we were confronted with self-conscious crustaceans, or any other order of living creatures, it should not be beyond our power, or theirs, to establish some code, or system of signs to understanding.” “As we do when faced with tribes of savages,” I added. It was then that this somewhat unprofitable conversation ceased before a revelation which came to us in the shape of the last edition of The Pall Mall Gazette. John Linklater brought it with him from Lon- don. He was a rare visitor to the club, though popular enough when he cared to appear. His work was that of a reporter in the House of JOSEPH ASHLAR 75 Commons. He looked in now on his way home with a startling item of intelligence. “The murder’s out,” he said, handing Medland his newspaper. “Or rather both murders are out. “The Bat’ is a reality and very much alive indeed. Here’s chapter and verse for the whole story, and we must look out for squalls, since the gentleman is still at large.” CHAPTER WI TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVIA IT was reported that a seaman from Africa—a middle-aged foreigner, who had worked with an expedition in the forest areas of the equatorial hinterland—had brought the murderous animal back to Europe with him as a cub; that, on being secured, it was no larger than a flying fox; that it had grown enormously in captivity and finally escaped. A portrait of Joan Silva appeared in an illus- trated paper next morning, with a circumstantial account of his discovery, and his own picturesque career. He was a dago from a Spanish tramp steamer, and he asserted that the place of ‘the Bat’s’ captivity had been Rosas. He was about to approach scientific authorities and invite them to take charge of his find, when it broke the iron bars of a stout cage and disappeared by night. He offered remarkable particulars of his original capture, and was ready with all details and apt answers to the questions addressed to him by Science; but, as time passed, and “the Bat’ was neither seen again nor reported, Joan Silva's story began to have grave shadows cast upon it. A skeptical journal took the matter in hand and the course of its investigations reminded the last generation of a famous and ingenious gentle- 76 TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVIA 77 man whose narrative, of adventures in Australia, gulled not only the public but the intelligence of the British Association. Joan, indeed, turned out to be of the order of Louis de Rougemont and Ananias. The mariner proved himself rich in im- agination and for a while his story held together and defied unfriendly criticism; but, little by little, under remorseless cross-examination, the weak spots grew larger. He could produce no witnesses and no confirmatory reports of his operations in central Africa; while the opposition was able to find a man or two who had sailed with Silva and told odd stories concerning him. He began to contradict himself and get into difficulties. He bluffed valiantly, but had not the iron memory vital to successful lying; and within a month that happened to convict him of probable falsehood. Medical men proved, at any rate to their own sat- isfaction, that he was weak in his head, and suf- fered from an innocent sort of megalomania, which made him seek to challenge a wider attention than the ordinary man before the mast could hope to win. His messmates confirmed the diagnosis, and scarcely had poor Silva disappeared in a hurri- cane of laughter, directed more against those who had believed him than himself, when ‘the Bat’ was again in people’s minds and added very definitely to the world’s knowledge of its powers. For pur- pose was now revealed and the certainty that it operated with full consciousness of its actions. Time passed, spring returned and the endless business of settling the world into the ways of peace still occupied mankind and his leagues and TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVIA 79 nation was in reality behind him, though it pre- tended to be otherwise. He proved to the satis- faction of most of us that Jugo-Slavia was right, the famous musician and his following wrong. We shared a measure of his indignation that the Entente remained dumb. And then our new member found the call of his people imperative and returned to Jugo-Slavia before the existing difficulties were composed. The tangle was most complete and offered little hope of solution at this time; yet Stross- mayer had not been in his native land a week when all changed and a grotesque situation be- came relieved by the sudden fate which over- took Lorenzo Poglaici himself. Flying by night above the city and territory he had appropriated in the name of his nation, this famous and pic- turesque being met his death. It was supposed that he had crashed, and that the hero of a thou- sand achievements in mid air had at last suffered the too familiar fate of hundreds as bold and skilful as himself; but investigation proved the contrary and enabled Science to determine that the great man had perished aloft by means identical with those that destroyed Skeat and Ashlar in England. Thousands pictured the con- flict under the stars at an elevation unguessed, and thousands were confident that Poglaici had given a good account of himself and might be counted upon to have fought to a finish and wounded or slain his awful antagonist, if given any opportunity to do so; but evidence of harm to “the Bat’ was not forthcoming and whether it 80 NUMBER 87 also had received a fatal wound and fallen to per- ish on land or sea, none could say. As for the dead man, it was clear that his own death and no other cause had brought his monoplane to earth. Wounds, now familiar, had robbed him of life, and it was certain that he had perished aloft and only crashed at a much lower elevation, when his machine nose-dived and came to earth headfirst. The aviator had apparently been stabbed twice —in the breast and thigh; but there was no more to be learned from his end, and the light it threw upon the forces responsible for the tragedy was implicit rather than direct. Men mourned the musician and artist; but were not sorry that the mistaken patriot and his ag- gressive personality had disappeared. They gave Lorenzo Poglaici a national funeral, and his own Government, relieved of his influence and mag- netic powers, controlled his adherents and quickly settled the questions at difference in Jugo-Slavia’s favor. Paul Strossmayer, who returned to England a week after his famous enemy’s destruction, made no attempt to conceal immense satisfaction at the sudden turn of affairs. Poglaici’s death gave him keen gratification, while he declared himself to be wholly ignorant of the invisible and unknown forces brought into operation for this purpose. ‘‘I neither know what slew him, or who directed the assassination,” he assured us. “But this I know—that he found himself opposed by one who was stronger, swifter and far better equipped than himself. And those who reported that Poglaici TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVIA 81 was unarmed were mistaken. I myself was among those who saw him and examined his machine on the morning after his death. The error arose from finding no weapon where he fell; but subse- Quent search over the ground discovered a revol- ver of which four barrels had been discharged. That it was a presentation weapon and belonged to the dead man many, who had already seen it, were able to testify.” “He put up a fight, then?” asked Medland. “Certainly he did.” - “Yet the creature got to close quarters some- how and stabbed him as its other victims were stabbed.” “It pleases you still to imagine some aérial monster,” answered Strossmayer, “but surely no intelligent man can longer hold to that.” “Be it what is is, Jugo-Slavia owes it a debt of thanks,” suggested Leon Jacobs and the other agreed. “I should be only too glad if it lay in our power to repay that debt,” he replied. “The new en- ergy has been so far exerted in a manner that all who trust to constitutional government must applaud. This last manifestation was a very timely one—both for us and Poglaici’s own coun- try. His death promises to dissolve our diffi- culties and their embarrassments.” “The terrific thing is this,” said Jack Smith. “It is now proved to the satisfaction, or dissat- isfaction, of Europe, that a shrewd and powerful intelligence is critically watching human affairs and world movements. One must, I suppose, dis- 82 NUMBER 87 miss the idea that this intelligence comes from anywhere but the earth itself; but, in any case, its intellect can appreciate events, and it has chan- nels of ordinary knowledge like the rest of us. A living thing from another planet could only know all that this destructive force knows by commu- nion with mankind; and seeing its line of direct action is in a sense orderly and consistent and conservative, then it follows that there need be no secrecy, for if it were proclaimed and discovered, it could still count upon a very large measure of approval and support.” “That is so,” admitted Bishop Blore, “and while, ethically, all direct action of a minority, whatever its opinions, is abominable, yet there can be no doubt that in these cases the energy, or whatever you like to call it, has acted in a manner many might approve, and destroyed the activities of certain other energies represented by men, who were viewed with large distrust and dislike.” Strossmayer heartily concurred. “Those who think as we do must grant the force has been applied in no sense malignantly,” he declared. “Whatever the intelligence behind it, these events prove that it is a superior intel- ligence, cautious, restrained and averse to any extremes of thought.” Sir Bruce, who seldom agreed with the Jugo- Slav, conceded the value of this argument. “I, for myself, agree with you,” he said. “Not long since I and those who think with me, listened with astonishment and grief to a lecture delivered before the Society of Synthetic Dyers in this TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVIA 83 country. One anticipated a peaceful and encour- aging harangue, devoted entirely to progress and the advancement of industrial prosperity. But what did we hear? That the war was based on German chemistry; and that only our shameful backwardness in science prevented the recent aw- ful conflict from being over in three months. The speaker warned his audience that the next war would depend entirely on toxic substances and that the nation most richly endowed with toxic substances would win it. We went for expert advice upon the means to advance human welfare, not warfare; instead we learned that future pros- perity depends on poison gas, and are directed to devote our genius to its perfection.” “How does that bear upon the unknown?” asked Strossmayer. “The unknown,” answered Sir Bruce, “has that which banishes these foul ambitions and ren- ders them of no account. And if this secret power can prove to civilization that it is actuated by the highest and noblest motives, as we may venture still to hope, then humanity as a whole must rec- ognize in it a savior and not a destroyer.” “You are on the side of ‘the Bat’ then, Sir Bruce?” I asked; but he relapsed into his cus- tomary silence and left us to pursue the subject. “The grand fact seems to be this,” said Jacobs, “that, for good or ill, the control of the world lies on a new plane. For the first time in our history, our teachers and masters are men of science, not philosophers, clerics, or metaphysicians. Sci- ence has got the whip hand, and it remains to be 84 NUMBER 87 seen whether it will prove a humane and benefi- cent autocrat, or a worse tyrant than the world has yet known.” “One would give much to learn the opinions and intentions of those who have obtained this domin- ion,” added Bishop Blore. “They may be philos- ophers as well as chemists, Jacobs. They may be men inspired by our highest rules of conduct and possessed of the noblest ideals. And yet one is bound to doubt that before what has already been done; for wise men would be aware that great human movements and the aspiration of millions, but recently lifted by education out of dumb en- durance, cannot be swept away with the extinction of a few individuals. The death of leaders will often serve to elevate them into martyrs, and ad- vance, rather than retard, the causes for which they fought.” “Very true,” said Jack Smith. “The battle for freedom will continue, and I much doubt whether men of science are in the least competent to take the place of our old teachers and tradi- tional guides. Science has had to fight too long. It would not come into power without a leaven of bitterness in heart and head. Truth is many sided and there are aspects of living truth that Science cannot reconcile with reason and is too apt to undervalue.” Paul Strossmayer argued against this opinion, declaring that pure reason and the pursuit of truth qualified men of science to guide the affairs of mankind in a way they had never yet been guided; but I think most of us agreed that the lawyer had TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVIA 85 the best of it. The matter was left an open ques- tion as usual; then, some six weeks later another extraordinary manifestation of power applied against a harmless institution gave substance to Smith’s argument and seemed to indicate that ‘the Bat,’ as most people still preferred to call the unknown energy, was capable of action that pos- sessed no explanation on any human basis of reason, or unreason. One speaks of “an institution” and, indeed, the flourishing enterprise now wiped out of exist- ence had become such. The theater as a general term is, of course, an institution, but the enter- tainment at that time filling the King’s The- ater had specially earned the appellation; for a spectacular play was running there, and had been running to crowded and enthusiastic audi- ences, for the term of three years. There seemed no end to the success of “Indian Chutnee’ — a massive and brilliantly mounted spectacle of the East, which depended upon the splendor of its production, the magic of the dresses and the beauty of the music for its achievement, rather than any coherent or dramatic theme. But in a night the King's was wiped out of existence. Moving along a line of former activity the un- known forces attacked bricks and mortar, and at a time when the great building was empty, liber- ated such a volume of energy upon it that the theater and all it contained was turned to a moun- tain of dust. Again the force was exquisitely con- trolled, and despite its immensity, nothing but the doomed house of entertainment suffered. The 86 NUMBER 87 intelligence behind this weapon would kill a fly as deftly as it could crush a cathedral. And here again, by the attitude he took upon this new mani- festation, our foreign member once more gave his detractors an opportunity. Fate seemed to will that, by word or deed, he should be linked in vary- ing degrees of probability with the unknown. That he was in Jugo-Slavia when Lorenzo Poglaici per- ished appeared proof positive to certain minds, easily made up and already tinged with prejudice against him; but in the affair of the theater, the opinion he expressed could hardly be regarded with any justice as inspired by secret knowledge. Indeed one other, who certainly knew nothing of the matter, had arrived at the same conclusion independently. Bishop Blore, who appeared to take a benev- olent interest in ‘the Bat,’ and while deploring its actions, argued that they might spring from high motives, was considering this last occurrence, which he declared had gone far to weaken his hopes. None, of course, further questioned the cer- tainty that all the unexplained events proceeded from the same source, since chemistry had proved the connection. The Bishop, therefore, spoke under the general assumption. “This last outrage shakes me,” he confessed, “for even if we condone what is past, how are we to forgive an act that robs the world of innocent enjoyment and throws five hundred people out of work? No theory of decent conduct, no far- reaching design for the increased happiness of TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVIA 87 the world, can fit with this insensate act. Nor, am I told, was there anything to annoy anybody in the performance. I never go to the theater and am not in a position to judge, but Jacobs assures me the production was devoid of offence, and only a fanatical objection to all theatrical perform- ances could explain such an action.” “It seems isolated,” said I. “It does not fit in with anything that has gone before. There is nothing in common between this assault and the destruction of the Albert Memorial. One cannot explain it on any human values.” Already our company began to grow thin, for not a few members of the Club of Friends were about the business of their annual holiday; but Paul Strossmayer happened to be there on this occasion, and it was he who answered me. “I believe you are absolutely right, Granger,” he replied. “And what follows? Surely we may agree as to the only possible explanation. Con- scious intelligence is, of course, at work, not blind force hurled out of an indifferent sky; but all humanity must be fallible, and, in a word, I believe those who are running this secret of radio-active energy have made a mistake. They are men like ourselves, and on tke night when chance destroyed the King's Theater, somebody blundered. Let us endeavor to find what goes on in the buildings which surround the theater; then we may perhaps judge better of the intended target.” He spoke so positively, that neither the bishop nor anybody else was prepared to contradict him. 88 NUMBER 87 Indeed Bishop Blore accepted this conclusion with considerable satisfaction. “For the credit of mankind, I hope you are right,” he said, “and since I am always quick to accept anything to the credit of our noble selves, I will believe that you are right. The explanation is reasonable, though one longs for details and proof that the object of attack was worthy of attack. Indeed there are few things I desire more keenly now-a-days than the explanation of these mysteries. They absorb me. I find my mind pre- occupied with them at all manner of inappro- priate times. Humanity seems to be on the very verge of some astounding increase of knowledge and, if I have a quarrel with the unknown, it is because this addition to our stock of wisdom is hidden from the race of men. For that no excuse exists.” “When the time comes, they will have to face an insulted world and explain themselves; though it will be difficult,” said Medland. “But we may be on a wrong track as I told you before. Co- incidence plays a large part in life, and these events, whatever Science may be pleased to think, may yet be proved to spring from different causes for which Science is not responsible.” He still clung to his own theory; and time was to prove that, after all, phenomena outside any human knowledge would again intrude upon men’s minds. For the present I am only concerned to state that Strossmayer’s suggestion of an accident was partially accepted; but even those who did not TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVIA 89 doubt that he must be right, judged him adversely upon it, and believed he spoke from inner knowl- edge denied to the majority of mankind. Indeed Jack Smith voiced others as well as him- self when he hinted as much. A veiled antagonism already existed between them, and their arguments, not on this subject alone, but others, embracing the code of laws on which Jugo-Slavia was to be conducted, often approached acrimony. “You know so much, Mr. Strossmayer, that perhaps you know more,” said Smith bluntly on this occasion. “It is your mistaken opinion that I do, and I wish you were right,” replied the other warmly and swift to pick up the challenge. “Nothing would afford me greater satisfaction than to de- clare your constant insinuations were just. If I possessed the secret, it might even give me a little pleasure to offer you practical illustration and proof that I did! Meantime, you, and not only you, continue to entertain the opinion that I lie. But why certain members of this club imagine . that I know more of these astounding events than they do, or that I am, so to speak, behind the scenes in the matter, I cannot guess.” “I will tell you, then,” answered the lawyer. “You, yourself, are to blame, for you admit that you and your friends in this country, or perhaps I should say your friend—the chemist, Ian Noble —are deeper in the mystery of radio-active ele- ments than anybody else. You have openly de- TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVLA 91. that they are at least grounded on a pretty solid basis.” The other considered before replying. He was not annoyed any longer; but evidently astonished. An element of something almost akin to amuse- ment entered into his expression as he frankly regarded Jack Smith. His answer turned away wrath. “I stand corrected,” he replied. “I swear to you with all my heart and soul, before the God I recognize, that I have had no hand in these things; but I no longer ask you, or any of your friends, to believe me if you consider such an oath upon my lips insignificant. It is true what you say. Had I been such a man and possessed such a power, I might have used it upon Alexander Skeat, who wounded me with his brutality; and, again, for my country’s good, I might willingly have destroyed my country’s enemy. I will go further and con- fess I should not have hesitated to do so. I re- joice that it was done, and a step gained thereby to the universal peace for which we groan. But I did neither of these things, because, though I am now sanguine that I shall live to see the new energy won for Jugo-Slavia, as yet it is not won, at any rate by us.” Smith bowed, but declined to leave the differ- ence composed; then Jacobs unfortunately struck in. There was little love lost at any time between him and the lawyer, and now he took Smith to task somewhat sharply. “Surely,” he said, “when a man goes so far and answers your baseless suspicions with such TO SAVE JUGO-SLAVIA 93 us a visit and given us a glimpse into the new chemistry, upon which the future seems so directly to depend.” “He shall come,” replied the other. “I am anxious for him to do so; but I hesitated to bring him under the growing weight of opinion directed against me here. I say nothing, but have been aware for some time that I was not persona grata save in certain quarters. However, I can easily leave you and, indeed, shall do so before long. But I will bring Ian Noble when he returns to England. For the moment he is in Vienna and proceeds to Belgrade to see my Government next week. On his return he shall come.” Strossmayer kept his word; but the installation of certain apparatus and the consideration of plans for new laboratories projected in his future home kept Noble out of England for several weeks, and when he did visit Chislehurst, to ac- cept the hospitality of the Club of Friends, there were but few members left to welcome him. Our little coterie was on the wing for the summer, and among those who had already departed were General Hugh Fordyce and his brother, Sir Bruce, who had gone to the latter’s estate in Devonshire. Merrivale Medland was off, as usual, to combine business with pleasure in France and Spain, and he, too, missed the visitor; while Jack Smith de- parted on a walking tour, but made no attempt to patch his quarrel before doing so. CHAPTER VII THE NEW CHEMISTRY IT was on an evening in July when Ian Noble actually visited us; and despite his youth, one could not fail to be conscious of a personality. For a young man he was remarkably sedate. Alert and alive he indeed seemed to be, but there appeared in him none of the exuberant quality of youthful genius. He did not assert himself, and let us appreciate his quality as much by his silences as through what he said. He was a Scot of dark complexion and lean, wiry build. His age was nine and twenty, but his clean-shorn face, thin jaw and lined forehead made him look ten years older. His life of toil had aged him, yet detracted nothing from a native frankness and urbanity of temper. He made no mistake about his own capabilities, or the vital importance of the work upon which he was engaged at this time; but he was not pretentious and he appeared to belong to that distinguished order of scientific inquirers who labor for the sake of truth, rather than to advance their fame, or improve their worldly position. He was, in fact, modest and far more interested with general questions em- bracing the future prospects of science, in its relations to humanity, than in his personal achieve- ments and contributions to knowledge. He echoed 94 THE NEW CHEMISTRY 95. Strossmayer, that to Science must the world look for its future salvation, and he argued that the spirit of Science was misunderstood. “Our stern and unyielding respect for truth is regarded by some minds as almost brutal,” he declared. “I find people who actually seem to think all research is based on infliction of suffer- ing ! It is monstrous. They forget that the prin- cipal sufferers are the scientists themselves and the amount of suffering that Science has already saved the world.” Concerning his own activities he would say very little, and while he made the line of his inquiry clear, he vouchsafed no light on the extent of his success, or where he now stood with reference to the great goal. He was not secretive, but diffident, and Strossmayer had more to say on that point than the chemist. Noble was a water- drinker and did not smoke; but he had a good appetite and enjoyed his dinner. He liked to talk when conscious of sympathetic auditors, and after we had adjourned to the smoking room, Paul Strossmayer soon launched him into his favorite, though by no means his only, theme. “The time has long passed,” he said, “since our immortal Boyle declared that we could pursue the secret of matter into the elements and no fur- ther. The elements themselves have increased in number since his day, and such modern chemists' as Becquerel and the Curies have atomized these elements. The atom is the starting point of mod- ern chemistry, and from it we reach radio-activity and so proceed to the hidden mysteries of trans- 96 NUMBER 87 mutation. They are no mysteries really: there is no such thing as a mystery in our domain; but for the present they continue to remain hidden from our intelligence, though time will surely yield the key to the door that still hides them.” “The circle seems to complete itself,” said Bishop Blore; “and I read that you latest seekers may yet show us that the inquiries of the old alchemists had something in them, after all. In my youth we were taught that the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life were moonshine.” “Far from it,” answered Noble. “Transmuta- tion is proved; but the ancient road would never have led to that discovery. Transmutation, I say again, is proved, and homogeneity, or identity, becomes a delusion of past scientists when we find elemental atoms composed of materials fundamen- tally different. For, pushed to its conclusion, this fact may reveal that the same element will trans- mute iron, or lead, or gold.” “How push it to its conclusion?” asked Jacobs. “That is the present puzzle,” admitted the young chemist. “That we cannot do yet, and to the bedrock, we may, of course, never actually get. But, on the other hand, we may; and, though my opinion is of little worth, I think we shall.” “We can control chemical changes easily enough,” explained Strossmayer. “That is one thing; but to control the changes of the atom is quite another.” “Quite another,” echoed Ian Noble. “We can- not make the atom expel a particle if it declines to do so, or retain a particle, if it is determined 98 NUMBER 87 “An appalling prospect,” confessed Leon Jacobs; “for put a case. Such a discovery would argue genius of the very highest order—an amaz- ing intellect—and such a brain, rewarded perhaps by this awful discovery after a lifetime of gigan- tic toil, might well totter on the brink of insanity. Imagine such a power in the hand of a lunatic and our very cosmical existence is not worth a day’s purchase!” Noble nodded. “That is the truth—an appalling prospect, as you say; and what is more, for certain reasons and from the evidence before us of the unknown’s activities, your gloomy suggestion may be nearer the truth than you suppose.” But Bishop Blore raised his voice in protest. “You leave the Maker of the round world out of your calculations,” he assured our guest. “Shall the Almighty suffer His planet to be at the mercy of a creature? Shall we permit one of afflicted mind to exterminate the earth, as a lunatic destroys some harmless man, or child?” But Jacobs perceived that the good prelate had given himself into a rationalist’s hand. “That is dangerous ground, Bishop,” he re- plied, “for the evils you suggest, which we know have too often happened, only differ in magnitude from what we imagine. If it is denied that a mad- man may extinguish a world, why is it allowed that he may take an innocent life?” Paul Strossmayer brought us back to the sub- ject. “Since you suspect such colossal perils, my THE NEW CHEMISTRY 99 friend,” he said to Noble, “the quicker you find an antidote and give our “Bat’ a dose of his own physic, the better for Jugo-Slavia.” But the other only broke off from his lecture to chaff. “All very well, Paul; but remember I am not the man to be enslaved for a party, or a State. I had to make that mighty clear when I was in your very attractive country, and among your very attractive countrymen. You are a most astute person—everybody in Jugo-Slavia appears to be astute for that matter—but with a sort of astuteness that made me kick a little. You, your- self, are as honest as the light; but your people are—what? Shall we say “self-centered’? You must not keep us chemists on a chain, to bark for Jugo-Slavia alone. You must not exploit us, Paul.” “Why use the word?” asked Strossmayer. “You know very well, Noble, that your first duty is to your employer, and though you discover something of world-wide significance, as you will, your first duty is still to your employer. You have accepted our general terms, and if we like to keep a menagerie of scientists in luxury and affluence, on the off chance that the game is worth the candle, that is our affair. But it is your affair to give us your results be they great or small—be they only to make two ears of corn grow where one has grown, or split the world like a nut, as you say.” “Granted,” answered his friend. “We will talk of that another time, when there is something to 100 NUMBER 87 talk about. I shall not be found lacking in enthusiasm for Jugo-Slavia which has treated me so well, is building me the finest laboratory in Europe, and not denying me the most costly materials for research within human reach. All that I fully recognize. The means to wealth and the power which arises out of wealth, if I discover them, are Jugo-Slavia’s; but the application to which those means shall be put—have I no voice in that vital matter?” “We will talk of this another time, as you suggested,” replied the other. “This is a per- sonal question and cannot interest our friends.” The younger man, showing a trace of discom- posure, was silent a few moments; then he dismissed that aspect of his activities and turned to us. “If you want research, you must go outside the Universities,” he said. “University professors are paid to teach, not to learn, and many a cre- ative man is smothered in a Chair. State depart- ments are chiefly concerned to prop up the old, not to foster the new; and law, officialdom, the Constitution itself, have always supported the non-creative, selfish interests of mankind. Never- theless Science is winning a place in the sun at last. This argues no particular good will on the part of our rulers, but only a general, though still foggy, perception that the future prosperity of civilization depends upon Science. The Arts need not be afraid, for as our claim is universal, so are our obligations. Science is acutely aware of its obligations and perceives their immensity, THE NEW CHEMISTRY 101 when it shall reach these gigantic powers pres- ently to be discovered.” “They must be applied to the boon, not the bane, of humanity,” asserted Bishop Blore, and none differed from his pious hope. “That is every good man’s wish,” answered Noble, “but Science is clear-eyed and appreciates the complexity of the problem. The quest itself is difficult enough and success may be long delayed; but consider how far more difficult will be what follows discovery. The problem of ap- plying our mighty energy to the good of all men and the advancement of the whole world’s progress, will be one calling for a vaster intellect than is yet upon this earth. Indeed no solitary brain, or nation, can be expected to administer such an inheritance impartially.” “The new energy must be the servant, not the tyrant, of man,” I said. “But how easily—how fatally easily—might it become the tyrant,” he replied. Paul Strossmayer was growing a little uneasy at this development of the theme. “Don’t preach, Ian,” he said abruptly. “Leave that to Bishop Blore. Give us chemical facts, not ethical theories: they are not your line.” But a flush came into the chemist’s pale face, though he answered quietly. “You may find that they are,” he replied. “Even a man of science must be granted a heart as well as a head, Paul; and I imagine no chemist is the worse for loving his fellow creatures and 102 NUMBER 87 desiring to increase universal happiness. You must not deny me my enthusiasms or ideals, even though my business is concerned with the search for truth alone. Indeed where shall we find a greater or more precious truth than the right application of knowledge to the advancement of man’s Welfare?” The bishop applauded this sentiment. “Wisely spoken,” he declared. “Learning misapplied is worse than ignorance. When it is within our reach, let our greatest good be shared by all.” “Easy to wish, your lordship,” answered the Scot; “but how inconceivably difficult to accom- plish. None should know better than a prince of the Church how hard must be the task before us. Consider that we have been seeking to apply the panacea of Christianity to human affairs for nearly two thousand years, since the concept first dawned upon mankind. There you see the prob- lem paralleled; and if moral precepts and a lofty, universal rule of conduct are so hard to establish, so apparently impossible of human application, who can assert that some immense, physical dis- covery, however full of promise and hope, will not prove equally difficult to set going in right channels?” “Until we make the world safe for righteous- ness, we certainly shall never make it safe for unlimited energy,” admitted Bishop Blore. “I must grant you that mankind has failed, so far, to employ that most glorious of all energies, the gift of the Founder of Christianity, which we call THE NEW CHEMISTRY 103 love. That He has placed at our service; He has erected its altars in every human soul; but few there are who worship at those altars with a single heart. The fault, however, lies in human weakness and fallibility, not in the gift itself.” Noble bowed respectfully. “It is good to find a distinguished churchman honest enough to admit the failure,” he answered. Then Leon Jacobs spoke. “Great forces which might unite and pull together, still, by some unhappy, inherent weak- ness in us, are content to oppose their strength,” he said. “If the Church had the sense to support Science and elevate the application of its discov- eries into the field of morals, she might yet justify herself to many skeptic minds. But she kicks against the pricks of knowledge, and so gives herself dangerous wounds, which only lower her own vitality. She quarrels with Science, denies and grudges its discoveries, cheapens its con- clusions, fights against the inevitable and resist- less progress of truth and ignores all the salutary cleansing, saintly work that Science has done and is doing for the amelioration of human suffering.” “It must be so,” reluctantly confessed the bishop. “No honest man can pretend a recon- ciliation, for reconciliation is impossible. One reads the annual sermon before the British Asso- ciation and realizes the futility and hollowness of such a friendship. We have held the knife to the throat of Science too long, and Science retaliates—with no knife indeed—but by the liberation of an air so icy that Faith cannot 104 NUMBER 87 breathe it. Let each of us, therefore, look to the order in his own house and leave the reconcilia- tion of Faith and Science to the Everlasting.” “Faith must not be denied us, however,” answered Noble. “Dogmatism is death to Science; but none the less we have a very deeply rooted faith, and if I gave it a name I should call it belief in the evolution of human morals and a sure trust that such evolution tends upwards, despite the darkness of the times in which we happen to live. An ephemeral insect, that lives and dies on a gray day, might deny the existence of the sun; but though our span of years may happen to be gray, reason and unconquerable hope still tell the man of science that the sun is shining, presently to emerge for generations as yet unborn.” A vivid animation characterized the young man's utterance and light seemed to shine upon his face as he spoke. Bishop Blore looked at him with a sort of regret. Indeed the elder man voiced his emotion. “Would that your brain had developed the little extra twist, to bring you on our side,” he said frankly. “There are only two sides,” answered the chemist; “and I make bold to believe I am on yours—in all things that matter.” But the old prelate shook his head. After this excursion into morals, our guest re- turned to his own subject. “Energy is the point,” he explained. “There are two energies, the sleeping and waking. A THE NEW CHEMISTRY 105 loaded gun cartridge is potential energy. We may scatter the powder or dynamite on the ground and the energy is lost; but put the cartridge into your gun and fire it, then the energy becomes kinetic, active, awake. We hold that the energy that is waiting to alter the face of the earth and change her tears to smiles is close to our hands— sleeping. Everything is embraced in matter and its product, energy. All that has ever happened, or can happen, is comprehended in those words. The beings who have done these obscure deeds— men, as of course, I believe—stored energy and then liberated it. In the case of the Albert Memorial, energy was poured out, to the destruc- tion of those earlier energies that created and erected it. Energy is being stored in secret— that is what we have to recollect. Vast energies are being bottled and locked up ready for use by unknown men; and they choose that we should grope in the dark blindly, only seeing a little at a time of their purpose.” “And we are on their track,” added Stross- mayer. “They are a good way ahead still; but Noble is going to catch them up and pass them presently!” “Imake no such promise,” answered the other; “though I believe and, indeed, am sure, that we are upon their track, because there is only one track. They are chemists, for what they have learned could only come by that road. And they are at this moment far the greatest chemists in the world, by virtue of their achievement. Great chemists, but not great men.” 106 NUMBER 87 “Why do you say that?” asked Paul Stross- mayer. “Because the first impulse of a true follower of Science is to enrich the world with his knowl- edge. These people are not in the great tradition, otherwise their secret had before now became common property. But I condemn them for more than that. They have given very stupid signs of a reactionary spirit—I speak of their murders —and how can we believe that those who have already done what they have done are in any sense worthy of the power that they control?” Jacobs agreed with the visitor. “One can only read them in the light of their demonstrations,” he declared. “Their ultimate purpose is still hidden.” After further conversation, Bishop Blore asked pointedly whether Noble had any inkling of those responsible for the recent catastrophes. “You are informed, no doubt, of the best that is being done in your own line of inquiry,” he said, “for, as you truly tell us, Science keeps no secrets, but is only concerned to publish what may add to the sum of human knowledge. Do you, therefore, suspect any school of workers, or any nation known to be busy with radio-activity? Can you point to a possible starting place for these things?” “Emphatically no,” answered our guest. “Neither I, nor any of my acquaintance and co- workers, has so much as a theory of the puzzle, let alone a clue. It beats us, both here and in Germany and in America. And we are chiefly THE NEW CHEMISTRY 107 beaten by the phenomena themselves. They may not be called irrational; but they are vague, if not contradictory. They indicate no point of view that we should expect to find displayed by any enlightened people.” “What, then, of the theory that unconscious forces are responsible?” I asked. “How should you answer the supposition that there are two energies at work?” “I have proved that there is but one,” answered jºyer. “My theory has been accepted so ar. “Undoubtedly there is but one energy,” ad- mitted Ian Noble. “Then what of ‘the Bat’?” inquired Bishop Blore. But the visitor declared absolute unbelief upon this point. “I am among those who decline to accept your Bat, Bishop,” he replied, little guessing the experience that awaited him in the future. “I judge “the Bat’ to belong to the region of psycho- analysis, suggestion and mental obscurity. “The Bat’ was handed on from policeman to policeman. You must look for that animal where you look for the Russians who crossed England to get to the front in France, or the angels reported from Mons.” “Strange that one accustomed, no doubt, to examine evidence so closely as yourself should reject such evidence as can be furnished for the flying monster, Mr. Noble,” ventured Bishop Blore; but the young man was positive upon this GRIMWOOD 111 back, Clos upon the left side of his head, Paravi- cini at his stomach; in death they furnished the same phenomena as those who had passed before them. A red pin-prick was all that could exter- nally be detected; the disintegration and some- thing akin to transmutation of their elements occurred within. The three were cremated and interred with imposing ceremonial, and Demos throughout Europe and America began to be seriously dis- turbed concerning the tremendous weapon now directed so methodically and remorselessly against it. Much passion was aroused and immense un- rest. Class war entered the sphere of practical politics, and those best able to judge of the trend now given to a secret and subterranean move- ment, apprehended that any future demonstration along the lines of this triple assassination would precipitate the struggle and let loose revolution upon a weary earth striving to regain stability and equilibrium. Danger threatened on every hand, and Labor, together with various anarchic forces that mas- querade in its name, began to shout through many mouthpieces that their traditionary foes had “cor- nered’ some terrific new power and designed its ruthless application against the people. An opinion so grotesque needed only publica- tion to meet the ridicule of all reasonable men; but the alarm took wing from a thousand angry tongues and in a hundred journals; it was not adequately refuted or denied and, as usual, er- roneous impressions on fiery and eloquent lips 112 NUMBER 87 seduced innumerable listeners, who found reason in temperate mouths a tame substitute for the more forcible and trenchant utterances of their own leaders. Revolution, then, spread dark wings in the upper air, and already shadowed mankind. Inci- dentally the international detective forces, em- ployed by night and day upon the problem, were for a time relieved of the phantom of ‘the Bat’; and yet it was not a month after these events that the mystery again appeared. For the first time the United States of America became a theater for its activities, and thence it was reported in connection with inci- dents of the most amazing character. In their order, however, I must first relate occurrences of a nature personal to the Club of Priends, for it is not without good reason that I have undertaken this record and written it, so to speak, from our club window. A time swiftly approached when our modest coterie was destined to figure largely in the world’s interest and suf- fer a flood of light focalized upon its little com- pany. Thus the conventional and commonplace may often emerge into a blaze of passing publicity, in virtue of extrinsic interests for which, in itself, it is not responsible. Paul Strossmayer indeed—a passing presence, a bird of passage—was the only man among us who could be magnified into a personality, or described as a man out of the ordinary; and he continued to be a lively object of interest and con- tention behind his back. His detractors eagerly 114 NUMBER 87 so far, discovered; and he has one personal friend, at Boston, whom I must secure at any cost.” Paul Strossmayer, then, was in America, or supposed to be, and Jacobs, soon after his depar- ture, prepared for a vacation to the Swiss lakes. For me, holidays were never any great attrac- tion, and though I took the month of August an- nually, I often regretted that it was not possible to hand the leisure weeks to somebody who stood more in need of change and relaxation. I had almost determined to visit Cumberland and en- large a very limited acquaintance with my native land, when an alternative was presented and I received a letter from General Fordyce, which, after brief consideration, changed my plans. He wrote from Grimwood, South Brent, South Devon, his brother’s place. Grimwood, as I already knew, had descended to the general at his father’s death, but he was a poor man and did not appreciate the country, save for a few months of shooting in the autumn. Sir Bruce, however, for sentimental reasons, con- nected with his dead mother and sister, chose to preserve his old home in the family, though there was none to follow him there, and he had told me, when speaking of it, that his means did not permit of keeping up Grimwood in a manner worthy of so fine an estate. I found afterwards that he made no attempt whatever to sustain the vanished splendors of his ancestral halls, and was apparently content to let the mansion go to ruin, while he occupied but half a dozen chambers in it, and that only during the summer months. GRIMWOOD 115 And now General Hugh invited me to join his brother rather than himself. Indeed he made a great favor of such a visit; reminded me that I was accustomed to regard my annual holiday as a nuisance rather than a pleasure, and promised me some beautiful scenery at the foothills of Dartmoor and pleasant bicycle or motor excur- sions to the sea and surrounding scenes of his- torical interest. - Thus he wrote: “My DEAR GRANGER: I know that holidays are no more than a necessary hiatus in your orderly existence, and since the fatal month of August is now again threatening you with enforced idleness, I am going to suggest that you kill two birds with one stone—take your change and do me a good turn by taking it here. “Sir Bruce is fond of you: you see eye to eye with him in many directions and he appreciates your restful company and capacity for quiet. If you could put in even a couple of weeks with him, it would give him real pleasure and reconcile him to my departure; for I am engaged to friends in Scotland and a shooting part later on at the Derbyshire Peak. “Between ourselves, however, I shall have to deny myself these amusements if you cannot come to Grimwood, for my brother is not in his best form. It seems absurd to suggest that a man of such iron constitution, vigor and mental and physical activity is weakening, and I do not think that his indisposition can be more than transi- 116 NUMBER 87 tory; but you know what a soft heart he has got and how he hardly endures the woe of the world. Disasters weigh heavily upon his shoulders; he feels many things acutely and takes a gloomy rather than a sanguine view of the future. He was always a pessimist by temperament, and life, though it has brought him well-deserved recogni- tion and distinction, has also inflicted upon him his share of private sorrows. He cannot change his outlook now, and my cheerful habit of saying ‘yea’ to life and trusting a future generation to make a better business of civilization than we have gives him no satisfaction. Indeed there is not much to be cheerful about, I grant; but, as I tell Bruce, the individual can only do his duty and leave the fate of mankind in the Hands of Him who made them. “Do come if it is within your power; but do not think I design a martyrdom. We lie in the midst of noble scenery, within easy distance of the sea and among scenes and places of historical attrac- tion. You will have ample freedom to enjoy these things; indeed, if you are at home for dinner and a chat with my brother afterwards, that is all I ask. He seldom breakfasts downstairs and is for the most part invisible till after noon. You will, therefore, be free as air to pursue your own amusement. “But I know this is putting a strain on friend- ship and I shall perfectly understand if your plans are made and the suggestion should prove im- practicable. I hope the ‘Friends’ are well, GRIMWOOD 117 though doubtless most of our little company is away. “Always sincerely yours, “HUGH FoRDYCE.” I was well pleased to oblige the general, and after August Bank Holiday had passed, set off for Devonshire—a county not familiar to me. My host met me at South Brent and we drove under the Southern ranges of the great Devon tableland to Grimwood, distant five miles from the station. The approach, after traveling through a net- work of interminable lanes, rendered stuffy and airless by the height of the hedges, proved some- what imposing. We descended a long avenue of ancient elms, then entered a great cup or “coomb” of beautiful park land, upon the northern side of which, its long front facing south, stood Grim- wood. Forests surrounded the grasslands and rose densely on all sides of the park. They seemed to press forward in great hanging woods on every quarter of the compass, and threaten to flow down with floods of heavy summer green to drown the mansion and the narrow gardens of pleasure that extended before it. The drive was mossy and neglected, and many trees showed evidence of decay. Here a winter storm had uprooted three together, but still their dead carcasses lay beside the way. As for the house, seen half a mile distant, it was dignified in design, though ruined to an architectural eye by the ivy that had been permitted to mantle its 118 NUMBER 87 face, climb to the roofs and destroy its outlines; but, at nearer approach, I was startled, for the great front showed many evidences of decay; the battlements were broken, and a portion of the eastern face already appeared ruinous. General Fordyce observed my surprise, which I fear was not concealed as carefully as manners might have demanded. “It’s the ivy,” he said. “I’m always at Bruce to strip the place and do something to it, but he is preoccupied and won’t bother. His own wing is all right, though. All this end has been empty for half a century, and our damp climate is re- sponsible for these rather melancholy results.” But Grimwood was more than melancholy in my eyes. Something brooding belonged to it. I felt a spirit in the air—a spirit of dissolution and decay, not only sorrowful but sinister. Beauty still harbored in the distinguished Elizabethan elevation; but one felt it lingered upon this moss- grown and neglected edifice only as the sunset, and promised soon to vanish. “It will last my time,” said Sir Bruce, when a week later, at his own invitation, I had expressed my opinion of his home, coupled with a fear that the fabric call for far-reaching attention. It was a fortified manor house of two stories spreading under a long and battlemented roof–a very lonely habitation, for the nearest of the estate’s five farmhouses stood a mile away, be- yond the ring of forest that hemmed it in. Upon our drive on the evening of my arrival, General Hugh thanked me very heartily for com- GRIMWOOD 119 ing, and was evidently glad to be gone himself. The brothers were so different in their outlook upon life that, though close family feeling and natural affection bound them together, no tougher and more vital bonds of conviction and imagina- tion linked their minds. Sir Bruce welcomed me with genuine pleasure, and finding him in excellent health and spirits, I suspected that his brother’s discovery of threat- ened illness had in reality been caused by himself. For I have known relations gravely to disturb each other and then, unconscious that the distract- ing element sprang from themselves, to declare a fear that the object of their solicitation was unwell. At any rate the master of Grimwood greeted me with more than friendship and re- peated his satisfaction at my visit. He was glad, or good enough to say he was glad, of my com- panionship, while at the same time insisting on a large freedom for me. He made me take long ex- cursions upon the moors and beside the sea; and though he often accompanied me to scenes of old- time importance or natural beauty, yet frequently expressed a wish that I should sometimes desert him and amuse myself alone. That was not difficult to do, for his library at- tracted me even more than the rare scenery of the South Hams, and I welcomed any excuse of. fered by a showery day to spend my time with new books. To fiction neither I nor my host was addicted; but he had collected probably the finest library on India in England, while for the rest, botany filled many shelves, and I had opportunity 120 NUMBER 87 for the first time to study Sir Bruce's own classical monographs upon the poison of serpents. He told me the story of an extraordinary trag- edy in Georgian times, and how Grimwood, after these appalling incidents, had long been empty until his father purchased the property, restored it and rendered it habitable again. “And now,” he said, “the hands of death and decay are upon it once more; but whether when I am gone, a new master will labor here and renew the vanished beauty as my father did, is doubtful.” We walked through the woods, visited a little lake, where the waters of a stream were collected at the lowest point of the coomb, and also inspected Sir Bruce’s farms, which displayed a much higher average of prosperity than his own dwelling. It was on the occasion of one of these short excur- sions that Sir Bruce uttered an opinion which interested, though it hardly astonished, me. We had viewed a field of wheat already going golden-brown to harvest, and my host invited my criticism upon it. “Collins, my tenant, assures me that this is the finest corn within his recollection,” he said, “and he has an experience of forty years. What do you think??? But my profound ignorance prevented me from any comment. “To me it looks much like many other fine fields that I have seen, Sir Bruce, " I responded, “but . if your expert tenant is so impressed, then doubt- less the wheat is something out of the common.” “American grain,” he answered. “Perhaps GRIMWOOD 121 one of Luther Burbank’s amazing hybrids. That man hustles Nature in a manner to cause her some uneasiness surely. Collins is a very intelligent farmer. He only laments that he did not come upon this corn sooner. But I console him by the assurance that the variety may not have existed five years ago.” From this subject we turned to agriculture and thence to the industrial position generally. I ut- tered a platitude, my mind not really upon the subject, and my interest divided between our con- versation and the spectacle of pheasants feeding along the edges of a spinney. “No doubt,” I said, “little will be accomplished until there are neither rich nor poor. Surely that is the first step to the desired understanding and amelioration. Yet humanity cannot be made to see that step must be taken and that sacrifice made for the good of the greater number.” Then Sir Bruce brought my wandering thoughts back sharply with an energetic protest. “What nonsense is this, my dear fellow?” he asked. “These are the futilities of thinking that have largely landed the world in its present mess, and I have no sympathy with them whatever. Indeed I despise them. Far too much is involved, and the conditions of ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ can no more be destroyed than the climatic alterations of heat and cold. The race must be to the strong, and the promised land will not, I heartily hope, be one of allotments and five-roomed cottages only. Heroes will continue to be born, Granger; and herds of men will continue to follow them, honor 122 NUMBER 87 them and lift them into the command and control of lesser men. But the heroes of our grand- children will be very different from the heroes of our grandfathers—that I grant, though such men, when they appear, must be adequately re- warded by their grateful fellow creatures. So far I trust humanity to follow the old paths. Science is hard at work, not only in the head, but also in the heart of mankind, and human reason, de- spite irrational excursions into many false roads under many false lights, may yet return to the true way in time to come. Sometimes, however, I despair, for this cause: that we do not grasp our nettles bravely, but, for cowardice, pretend they have a right to their place in the border. We are frightened to pull them out and cast them into the fire.” Sir Bruce strove for my sake to be cheerful and throw himself into such interests as a visitor to a strange county might be supposed to feel; but I found that, after all, his brother was not mistaken. A spirit of advancing age began to appear, not only in the domain of my host’s mind, but in the matter of his physical activities also. Like many old Indians, he had always been an early riser and fond of exercise; but it seemed here, though the attractive surroundings of his country home might well have tempted him to do otherwise, he surrendered to lethargy, rose late and frequently retired soon after dinner, upon the plea of passing indisposition and fatigue. He often appeared weary, and as night approached, I observed that he became more melancholy and GRIMWOOD 123 disposed to dwell on sad rather than cheerful topics. His staff was very small and his manner of life, though he made some efforts on my behalf, in reality naked of all nice comforts or luxuries. Indeed he seemed indifferent to comfort and had often, in the past, attributed his own rare preservation and physical well-being to a life that courted hardship and avoided ease, both of mind and body. “I am content to be comfortable when I go to bed,” he used to say. “If a man is comfortable eight hours out of every twenty-four—both in his limbs and in his brain—he should be well sat- isfied. How many never are? This is not a com- fortable world, and a hard life devoid of self- indulgence helps me to keep a sense of reality that most old people entirely lose.” A man, his wife and their widowed daughter constituted Sir Bruce's staff within doors. They were amiable and simple natives; but they proved very jealous for Sir Bruce and when, on one oc- casion, I asked Timothy Bassett, my friend’s fac- totum, certain questions concerning Grimwood, I noticed that he evaded any direct replies. My inquiry was of the most innocent nature and concerned the fabric of the mansion and certain portions of it I had not yet seen. There were some famous ceilings of Italian workmanship in empty chambers, and a coat of arms dating from the time of the original possessors in Elizabeth’s reign; but though Sir Bruce had never shown me these things, they had been mentioned by him with a GRIMWOOD 125 may have a significance after all, though Science, of course, derides it. These ‘monsters’ as our forefathers held them to be—things impossible to place in the frank categories of nature—were thought to have been created after the transgres- sion of Adam and doomed never to take their rank among those perfect works of the Creator which appeared before man’s Fall. The bat belongs to the ‘peccata Naturae,’—the errors, or failures of Nature. Of such are your griffon, wivern, dragon, or cockatrice. And to such may be added the succubus, vampire and were-wolf of the Middle Ages. As to living bats, I have seen them and studied them singly and in myriads. The bat haunts in certain ruined Indian temples, secluded from a later civilization and hidden among the jungles and forests of Nepal and the Sikkim, are amazing, horrible places. There I have observed these creatures attain to a size far larger than any I record, because their capture, or destruction, proved impossible. These greater varieties of the species possess extraordinary perception and a faculty of animal intelligence we only find in our domestic and highly developed mammalia.” My eyes grew round; but this was as nothing to what was to follow. “Is it possible,” I asked, “that you can believe in the thing still often called ‘the Bat,” but what is now more generally described as ‘the Un- known’?” He did not directly reply, but asked a question in return for mine. “Have you ever seen a sheep-dog trial, Gran- 126 NUMBER 87 ger? If not, I may tell you that it affords an extraordinary example of what, for a better term, we describe as the reasoning power of animals. The dog is directed from a distance by his master to do certain things. He has to seek out sheep, perhaps a mile away, on the hillside. He is bidden to fetch them and pen them in a small enclosure of hurdles. These duties he performs with no more directions than his master’s voice. Thus we see an animal whose instinct is developed into reason, and whose mind comprehends and obeys the will of his master conveyed to him from a distance by sounds.” “I have heard of them, and the marvellous in- telligence, apparently akin to reason, displayed by these highly trained sheep dogs,” I answered. Then he replied to my question. “There was a time when I did not believe in ‘the Bat.” Now I do believe in it. And for the best of all possible reasons. I have myself seen it.” I started, but Sir Bruce had apparently ceased to concern himself with me. He was looking before him and continued, as though thinking aloud rather than addressing another person. “I have seen this thing. I have seen it on a moonlight night flying above my own woods and over my own house. It is somewhat larger than has been alleged. There was no mistake: my eyes are keen still for all their use. I am disposed to believe that more than one of these beings may exist; and, once convinced beyond the possibility of doubt, I have set myself to examine the events GRIMWOOD 127 of the past and, if possible, arrive at some sort of explanation consonant with reality. So far as I can yet see, there is a solitary solution to this ghastly riddle, and that itself is ghastly and may well be said to strain credulity.” I did not speak—indeed I had nothing to say. Then, after a pause, he turned to me and directly addressed me. “You will perceive now my purpose in men- tioning the sheep-dog trials, Granger?” But he had quite suspended my modest powers of ratiocination and I confessed that, as yet, no connection was apparent in my mind. Whereupon he regarded me with a strange expression that I had not before seen upon his face. It almost amounted to contempt. “You may fairly be said to stand for the aver- age man,” he answered, “and if you do not see, then it is improbable that the majority will see either. Yet upon what other conceivable basis can any intelligible clue be found? I admit the strangeness, the unlikeness to truth, the out- rage to experience and preconceived opinions. I admit also the consequent horror, for any outrage to experience has always an element of horror. This thing confounds opinion and experience at every turn. I say, then, that as the dog will rec- ognize and obey a human master, and perform for him operations that he could not perform for himself, being aided to do so by its adaptability and power of comprehending what man wishes and directs, so here, in this living organism we call ‘the Bat,’ there exists a mentality—far higher 128 NUMBER 87 than that of the dog, yet lower than the mentality of man—which can be trained and directed, or- dered and taught to obey. I see in this dark, liv- ing agent something akin to the fabled Efrits, and Eastern fairies and slaves of the ring, who were able to carry out their masters’ orders; I conceive of this creature, viewed rationally and without the terror it usually awakens by its strangeness, as an organism almost in sight of reason, yet none the less separated from modern man by a great gulf. I imagine that it may be, as it were, an abor- tive effort on Nature’s part to develop conscious intelligence along a different line and through a different species than that which produced man. She began and gave up, turning her attention in another direction. Thus we have a being — stranded on the way to something higher—a series broken—not a missing link, but the end of an in- completed chain. The gulf between this creature and ourselves, unknown men have in some meas- ure bridged. They have discovered the monster, trained it and instructed it to obey them; they have learned a means to convey their wishes to it; and, such is its own intelligence, that it has comprehended and is now operating and using its powers under human direction.” |Upon this astounding theory he talked for a long time, evidently convinced that he was right. Once he broke off and anticipated an objection as though he had read it in my mind, where, indeed, it was. “You will say that at Rome this creature was not associated with the deaths of the anarchists, 130 NUMBER 87 mayer was likely to attract him. He evidently retained his old aversion and distrust in that quarter and, indeed, ended the evening by speak- ing harsh words of the Jugo-Slav. “It may be that he and his secret companions have actually enslaved these unknown creatures,” he said. “At any rate I desire to hear nothing of this other slave in human shape—the chemist, Ian Noble.” He then pleaded fatigue, apologized for keep- ing me so long from my rest and prepared to re- tire. He thawed a little before leaving me; but he seemed to have drifted far from the man I knew, and I entertained profound fears for his mind. Indeed I determined to write to his brother on the following morning and was actually compos- ing a letter while I lay awake through that sleep- less night, when I recollected that General Hugh’s direction was unknown to me. Nor did I venture to ask for it. I remembered, however, that his address would be known at his own residence in Chislehurst, and decided to despatch my appeal there. |Upon what trifles may hang momentous events! Looking back, I feel little doubt that, had Sir Bruce been in an easier mood and permitted me to speak of Noble and what he had said and thought, not a few valuable lives might have been saved in the time to come. If I had even persisted and made another attempt to describe the young chemist’s aims and aspirations, infinite good must have resulted, had my host only been won to listen. But the opportunity was forever lost. GRIMWOOD 131 Little guessing how much might hang upon it, I felt only concerned to keep the old man of science calm, and did not, therefore, during the remainder of my visit touch again on this dis- puted ground. Yet had I done so; had I made a favor of it and invited—nay implored him, for courtesy and friendship, to let me speak, it is not too much to say that civilization itself had been enormously the gainer and the total measure of human happiness appreciably enriched and en- larged in this our time. The assertion must ap- pear preposterous and exaggerated; but subse- quent events proved it impossible to doubt that I write the truth. The fatal mischief was wrought, and two days later there came news that entirely preoccupied us; for the extraordinary information that then reached Grimwood, through the channels of the newspapers, appeared to support the extravagant opinions of Sir Bruce. The unknown had struck twice in America, and ‘the Bat’ had been observed by many witnesses. CHAPTER IX I SEE “THE BAT’ AN eminent man had been assassinated in Amer- ica—one upon whom the eyes of the New and Old World alike turned at this moment; and almost simultaneously were destroyed five New York buildings, all dedicated to one purpose: the ad- vancement of human welfare. In a night they were reduced to powder, and though the two events occurred widely separated in space, but a few hours intervened between them. The preliminary elections for the Presidency of the United States had thrown to the surface of politics various great Americans who were as yet only names to the average Englishmen; but among these appeared Judge Greenleaf P. Stubbs, who, by his stern and unsympathetic attitude to any convention of the League of Nations, had made his name familiar and caused some con- sternation in the Chancelleries of Europe. He was a Republican of the more conservative attitude, and the early, eliminating contests re- vealed so vast a body of opinion in his favor that already the issue to be determined during the following November seemed a matter of time alone. Never had the index to a presidential election appeared more certain, and it was already obvious that the party of Judge Stubbs would 132 I SEE “THE BAT’ 137 been viciously attacked at the headquarters of the movement—an event that gave rise to deep and natural indignation and much searching of heart, not only in America, North and South, but at those centers of activity where Christian Science was gaining ground in England and upon the Conti- nent. The extent of the movement was displayed by the volume of protest awakened at these intol- erant manifestations of power. The world, it seemed, uttered a shout of anger, and the subject, again thrust to the forefront of human affairs, absorbed the attention of all civilized countries. Public men spoke to large audiences, while pub- licists devoted daily and weekly columns of anal- ysis to the things done and examination of the motives behind them. Some writers professed to See a logical sequence of ideas and a sustained policy inspired by steadfast and consistent opin- ions. They exhausted their ingenuity in showing how all these events were but the outcome of a rooted, reactionary attitude, and in what manner the unknown’s intellect actually operated. They held it to be of very modest dimensions and in every respect ‘behind the times.” Such writers went further, prophesied the future and presumed to foretell the operations to be anticipated from the unknown. Again the wit of man was concen- trated on the initial problem of what this creature might in reality be and a thousand suggestions, both idiotic and reasonable, saw print. Among these I was interested to observe, in a letter to The Morning Post, the identical theory that had I SEE “THE BAT” 139 plane of the life beyond death—beings who often intruded among followers of the cult and, by horseplay and crazy antics, shocked the serious people assembled to get into touch with their dead—so now the world at large was faced with powerful but minor spirits, permitted thus to re- enter the sphere of their ancient earth-life in a carnal though unfamiliar form. As some from their unseen environment played pranks, rang bells, lifted furniture, sounded musical instru- ments and even tweaked living noses, so, it was argued, others, greater and far mightier, were now being allowed to return from the underworld and display this terrible power—for divine reasons as yet uncomprehended. Many, however, declared that the reason was apparent enough, and that only through recourse to world-wide prayer and a universal acceptance of another life, which these events were destined to prove for all mankind, would relief come. It was, in fact, widely declared that the demonstrations were supernatural, and that by the means of supernatural religion alone, might the world hope for any way of escape from them. The Spiritualists and many from the Churches also agreed with this opinion; but men of science for the most part declined to entertain any idea so irrational. They believed that human research had discovered the secret of the coming energy; but that those who held the power declined to make it public, preferring to exploit it, that their own narrow and fruitless opinions might be im- posed upon all. They also pointed out, correctly 140 NUMBER 87 enough, that the operations of the unknown by no means shocked humanity as a whole. The results achieved were greeted with unconcealed satisfac- tion by thousands, whose personal likes and dis- likes chimed with them; but at the same time, the majority was dismayed, and it may fairly be said that the mystery shrouding these murders created even a larger element of tribulation than the events themselves. This helplessness before the unknown force began slowly to paralyze rational thought and drive great masses to supplication of a Divine Controller; and while Science and Law strove without fear to solve the riddle, na- tions as a whole tended steadily to take super- stitious views and attribute the terror to forces beyond human control. Sir Bruce I found to be established in the same strange opinions to which I had listened. He held that the most recent incidents supported him; and while, to my mind, as unreasonable as any of those who now confessed a belief in the supernatural, he argued logically from his own standpoint. “Men’s hearts may quail,” he said to me as we discussed the matter on a night previous to my return home; “but their heads should remain cool. We are faced with unfamiliar beings employed in the exploitation of an unfamiliar power. We cannot define the worlds of conscious and uncon- scious, or say where instinct ends and reason begins. These things may belong to the border- land between. I say “these things,” because the more I hear, the more am I convinced that two at I SEE “THE BAT” 141 least of these winged bloodhounds are at work for man and employing the new energy under his di- rection, aided by their own highly developed, rea- soning power. For, in these cases from America, the distance between Yellowstone Park and New York could not have been traversed by any known flying animal, or bird, in the time that elapsed between the death of Judge Stubbs and the de- struction of the Christian Science Churches.” “A creature of sufficient size and power might perhaps have achieved it,” I suggested, and the remark led him into an interesting statement bearing indirectly upon the subject. “Size is nothing,” he answered, “but there are limits to the size of terrestrial life, and the power of locomotion, whether on land, or in air, is deter- mined also. Much unscientific nonsense is talked about ‘size,” and few people seem to remember that there still exist waster mammals on this planet than any recorded by the fossils of the huge, extinct saurians. Sir Ray Lankester has written with his usual illumination on the subject and shown that the existing African elephant is ac- tually larger than the mastodon and mammoth of the past; and though an elephant is a smaller creature than the giant reptiles of old—the Diplodocus, the Atlantosaurus or the largest of all, the enormous Gigantosaurus, whose arm bone measured seven feet to the fifteen inches of a man’s—yet consider our still living monsters. Gigantosaurus probably reached the limit of a land creature—perhaps he weighed twenty tons. But Sir Ray, in his supremely lucid exposition, 142 NUMBER 87 shows how such a creature is small to the largest living whales—those beings whose immense bulk is supported by the sea. Balaenoptera sibbaldii— a rorqual, known as the ‘blue whale’—is probably the largest and heaviest animal that has ever lived on this planet. When the great skeleton of an extinct monster was found in Alabama eighty years ago, the native folk who found it supposed they stood before the bones of one of the fallen angels! Some of these fragments were sent to Owen in this country and he discovered that they belonged to a whale. The ancient naturalists— Pliny and others—wrote nonsense about whales and much later men were no wiser. In 1825, Lacé- pède talked of a right whale as one hundred and ten yards long ! But it is enough to declare that there are living whales which exceed any known fossil in size. A great whalebone whale weighs two hundred tons, my dear Granger, and he can attain this enormous bulk by virtue of the medium in which he dwells. It is the difference between a land vehicle and a ship. But probably two hun- dred tons is about the limit for a creature of flesh and blood and bone. The materials are hardly strong enough to compose and sustain anything larger.” “And what of air animals?” I asked. “Flying things must of necessity be smaller than swimming creatures. Air cannot be trusted to carry anything as large as an elephant. This brute we call ‘the Bat’ was thought to be as large as an ox; and while it would be physically possible to admit far larger bats or birds than we know, I SEE “THE BAT’ 143 yet the limit must be quickly reached for animals driven through air by their own physical strength. I imagine the unknown creatures with which we are faced must be in reality considerably smaller than they are thought to be. The impress of ‘the Bat’s’ feet, as reported from America, support this opinion. They are not as large as we might have expected and, incidentally, they prove the being in no sense a true bat, since bats have not got feet.” “It may not in reality be of the bat species?” “It may not, or it may be a development of the known animal. It may, of course, be an insect enormously developed. We have no certain proof yet of the natural order to which it belongs. The American scientists suspect a bird. The foot- marks certainly suggest a bird, though the de- scriptions of the wings, ‘like huge umbrellas,” point to a mammal akin to the bat. But I do not yet discard the possibility of an enormous insect. The wound that it inflicts suggests a sting, or stab. It may, so far as the death it inflicts is concerned, employ natural weapons. And, to support the theory of an insect, we must remember that far the most numerous species of living things are all six-legged. If one order of creation may attain to size beyond human experience, so may another; if one order may develop intelligence to the verge of intellect, so may another. There are half a mil- lion recognized species of six-legged creatures, or insects, against about ten thousand only of the mammalia and fourteen thousand species of birds. Thus we find quite a fair argument, that 144 NUMBER 87 this hyperbolic being might spring from the in- sect race.” “A super-beetle?” I asked. “Why not?” “And do you still believe that it works for itself, or others, Sir Bruce?” “For others,” he answered, “because, no mat- ter how high its mental power, it could not know what it was doing without human guidance. By direct action it strikes at the fountainheads of danger and cripples those great and threatening movements to which those who control it are op- posed. In my own case, frankly, I do not find much to quarrel with, and thousands and thou- sands of other men of good will, who share my convictions, must view these terrible events with equanimity if not actual satisfaction.” Then he asked me my own opinion. “What do you feel, Granger? Do you not see that, if persisted in, these manifestations will not only reorganize thought, but also command con- duct? The effects are calculable, if the power continues consistent. We perceive what it dis- approves; and how is man to develop any policy, or proceed on any new principles of socialistic government, or false religious theory, if those who wield this weapon choose to intervene and stop him?” “Of course he cannot,” I admitted. “The en- ergy that has obliterated these gigantic buildings in New York might as easily be directed upon Westminster Abbey, or the Houses of Parliament. It is so far considerate for human life and only I SEE ‘THE BAT’ 145 kills those who must be supposed its unconscious enemies; but no doubt it could as easily attack a nation as an institution, an army as an individ- ual.” “Or a navy,” said Sir Bruce. “Earth and sea are alike within its dominion; this unknown energy, which disintegrates a man’s blood and bone, or masses of solid stone and steel, could doubtless fling our mountains into our oceans, or lift our oceans to overwhelm the solid earth.” “It could certainly sweep all life before it,” I admitted, “as a kettle of boiling water destroys a nest of ants. One prays, indeed, that you are right, Sir Bruce, and that human heads and human hearts control this awful power. That is the world’s only hope.” “It is true they might strip the face off the earth, as we peel the rind of an orange,” he answered; “but when you say you hope the un- known have hearts, I echo your aspiration. In- deed I firmly believe it is so. If I did not, I should share the general dismay and gathering fear—the herd instinct that is bringing vast numbers of the people to kneel in supplication to their Maker, who holds this energy and all energies in the hollow of His hand. I argue from what is done to what may be done, and entertain no apprehen- sion that any diabolic, anti-human turn will be given to affairs.” He talked in this strange strain and exhibited a sort of fitful cheerfulness between his more gloomy predictions. He entirely dismissed the paramount mystery from his conversation and 146 NUMBER 87 proceeded upon social questions, linking them in most cases with the organizations, or societies, which stood for them in the world. He returned to ‘the Bat’ again before we retired, and was later to bed on this occasion than ever I remembered him. He drank more stimulant than usual and to some extent came out of his shell, giving me a glimpse of a man who seemed younger in his opin- ions and more generous in his criticisms than the Sir Bruce I knew. I reflected before I slept and strove in vain to traverse once more the immense extent of the ground which had occupied his thoughts during the time between dinner and his retirement; but I could not gather up half the threads, or retrace a quarter of the arguments. I concentrated upon the subject that had interested me most, and it was then, to the sound of pattering rain upon the casement and at the first light of a gray dawn, there shot into my head a disquieting and almost horrible suspicion. Was it within the bounds of possibility that this little, highly strung man, his back bent by a lifetime of study and his forehead furrowed with mental labors, could know more of the mystery than he pretended—more, than anybody knew? Tonight he had spoken with far greater conviction, far less reserve, than was his custom. He had almost suggested one who stood within the councils of the unknown, for he had scoffed at the predictions of the newspaper writers and laughed at their prophecies; he had declared his shame and despair for humanity be- fore the theories of spiritualistic interference; he 148 NUMBER 87 once more determined to write to his brother on my approaching departure. I had, until now, rather prided myself upon a certain influence, that in my judgment was respon- sible for an improvement of Sir Bruce’s health and spirits. Twice, indeed, he assured me that this was the case and acknowledged handsomely my anodyne qualities—in reality the commonplace and moderate opinions of an everyday man. But tonight I feared and my satisfaction diminished. With the morning, however, I found him in splendid spirits and good heart. He spent my last two days at Grimwood much in my company, deliberately banished from our topics of conver- sation all unpleasant subjects, dropped the pres- ent and dwelt rather on the humorous and social life of his past in India. I had never seen him more cheerful or self-possessed, and my fears receded and actually vanished by the night before my departure and return home. But then a terrible incident came under my own observation, and it is to be feared that the line I took in connection with it was not that of a wise or courageous man. I am, however, in no concern to intrude any apologies for my character upon this narrative. The matter is far too tremendous to awaken temp- tation in that respect, and I claim no credit for anything but honesty. Sir Bruce devoted the last day of my visit to pleasure and took me, in a little Ford motor car, to the town of Salcombe by the sea. The excursion led into many beautiful hamlets and I SEE “THE BAT’ 149 over rivers, through a fertile region rich in prom- ise of harvest and golden with ripening corn. We inspected the charms of the little township, walked over silvery sands uncovered by the tide, sailed out to the harbor mouth for an hour, then returning ashore, climbed to the summit of a lofty hill, and enjoyed a vision of the South Hams undulating for radiant miles northward and only ended by the gray border heights and saliencies of Dartmoor. After our adventure the master of Grimwood was cheerful and gracious. He dined with good appetite and sat chatting until about eleven o'clock, when he took his leave of me. “You will be off before I rise,” he said. “The Ford shall be round in ample time to catch your train at Brent. Thank you heartily for your valued companionship, my dear Granger; it has been a source of the highest satisfaction to me, and I hope, now that you are introduced to Devon, you may be tempted to repeat your visit next year.” “You will not be lonely long, I hope, Sir Bruce.” “No. My brother returns for our modest shoot- ing about mid-September; and he will certainly find me in better health and spirits than when he left me.” My host shook hands heartily, looked forward to our next meeting, when he should return to Chislehurst for the winter, and left me for his own apartments; while I took my cigar and strolled a little while upon the neglected terrace. The 152 NUMBER 87 might have observed me and had descended for that reason. Somebody it had indeed observed, as the future proved, but not myself. Por a considerable time I lay motionless, then, hearing nothing, rose upon my knees and peeped stealthily from behind the birch. Moonlight showed the thing standing where it had settled. I saw its long neck; its low ears set far back upon a Snake-shaped head, its large, open eyes of phosphorescent green—the sort of illumi- nation now familiar to me as the light from glow- worms. The mass of its body was hidden by the fern and I could only see its head and neck and the hump of its shoulders rising above them. Its head moved and I sank behind my sheltering tree. Then thicker clouds drifted over the moon, and for the space of some minutes everything was dark. I looked again, but could only perceive the light of its eyes fixed and steadfast. Once for a moment they went out, then reappeared. It had shut them and opened them again. It ap- peared to be larger than any reports of it; but I could not judge, since the lower portions of its body were hidden. The clouds thinned once more and, even in that absorbed moment, I was conscious of a whisper from the leaves and a sigh overhead which told that rain had begun to fall. And then, when the moonlight was strong enough, I peeped again and my heart stood still. For the creature’s head was bent, and beside it stood a man. I could not recognize him, but perceived the 154 NUMBER 87 this time it was a friendly illumination that hung high over the great porch of Grimwood, where Sir Bruce had his own apartments. There a lamp shone through his lowered blind, and another, under a red shade, greeted me from the French window through which I had emerged half an hour before. Ithankfully regained the house, but with jarring nerves and something very like palpitation of the heart. I then shut and locked the windows, helped myself to a stiff tot of whiskey, extin- guished the lamp, lighted a candle and threading the silent passages, reached my own room. My first thought was to approach Sir Bruce without delay and describe all that I had seen; but honestly I dreaded to do so. I felt scarcely master of myself before the complicated horror of what I had seen, nor could I bear to reflect upon it, or consider its implications. Such a com- mon-sense mind as I possessed might doubtless have been expected to approach the phenomena without any distraction, for I lacked imaginative powers and was not sufficiently inventive to pile horror upon horror, or develop the situation in my thoughts; but the actual event proved more than enough to unsettle me. The stark fact that Some unknown creature had come down to earth and conversed with a man afforded sufficient mat- ter to confound me. Nor could I suppose that any other than the master of Grimwood had met this thing by appointment in the night-hidden forest. - I longed for time to pass, that I might see I SEE “THE BAT” 155 again the light of day, and I doubted not that “the Bat’ was even now upon some mission the purpose of which another four and twenty hours would probably reveal. I believed most thoroughly that I had seen Sir Bruce himself, and I sank into haunted sleep under that conviction. But with day there came doubts of such a suspicion, and subsequent events convinced me that this dreadful fear was groundless. CHAPTER X FROM RUSSIA TO CHINA I RETURNED home to find that my friend Leon Jacobs and Paul Strossmayer were both back; while a week later Jack Smith completed his holi- day and Merrivale Medland also reappeared among us, tanned very brown by southern suns. The lawyer’s walking tour had apparently done him good, for though he exhibited no cordiality, Smith took occasion to express regrets at a past ebullition of temper, and Leon was quick to meet him halfway. Certain events in his own country combined to atone for Paul Strossmayer’s disappointments in another. For Greater Serbia had determined its future constitution on lines that Strossmayer con- sidered to be dignified, advanced and wise. Jugo- Slavia was declared a hereditary monarchy with the Karageorgevitch dynasty affirmed upon the throne. Her Ministerial Councils had assembled and taken this important decision. The Councils expressed themselves in favor of a unified State with a single legislative Parliament, supported, however, by a system of non-legislative, local autonomy throughout the new Empire. I well recollect our friend’s satisfaction before these facts, and how, with almost childish pleasure, he dwelt on every detail, even to the 156 FROM RUSSIA TO CHINA 157 heraldic devices of his country. The royal arms. would be a double-headed, white eagle, with the symbols of Croatia and Slovenia upon its breast; while the national ensign was designed in a combi- nation of three colors: blue, white and red. Strossmayer’s disappointments were concerned with America, where his quest for young and aspiring radio-chemists had proved unproductive. Such men as he needed did not lack; but he found their own country valued their services and was quick to offer them such inducements that no temptation existed to seek fame and fortune afield. “America,” he said, “has sane millionaires who foster research. Her public is better edu- cated than yours: you have only got to read her new books on science and philosophy to see it. She has even a misty feeling that pure research is worth while, simply as a quest for truth. But she is intensely practical also. She appreciates radio-activity and its tremendous approaching significance. The commercial, industrial and pro- tective possibilities lying before her chemical researchers are clearly seen and grasped by their own countrymen. In the United States the chem- ist is somebody. His may be the ‘big noise,’ as they say, tomorrow.” Yet one circumstance, which he did not hesitate to impart, atoned in great measure for Stross- mayer's transatlantic failure. “After all,” he confessed, “there is not any among them who, to my knowledge, has yet gone as far as Ian Noble. While I was away, his work 158 NUMBER 87 has progressed amazingly. He stands a head and shoulders above the best in America, or the Southern Republics, and rapidly gains upon our unknown rivals. Ian is, in truth, far along the road to the goal, and has shown me some stagger- ing things since I returned. But he works too hard. I have ordered him to take some rest and get away from his laboratory for a week or two. It is doubtful, however, whether he will do so. I find in him an element almost of fear that he may be too late, so to speak, and fail to catch the unknown in time. He takes a gloomy view of what has already happened and what may happen at any moment.” This statement deeply interested Jacobs and myself. “Has Noble developed his theory of the un- known?” inquired Leon, and Strossmayer an- swered ‘yes.” Upon that point, however, he had not very closely examined his protégé. “Details do not particularly interest me, now that I am convinced these secret agents are sound in their politics and can be trusted,” he replied; “but Noble has a new theory which needlessly disquiets him. We are, of course, not agreed on the performances of the unknown, and he does not applaud them so heartily as I do.” “Has he changed his opinion, that “the Bat’ itself is a myth?” asked Jacobs, and the other admitted that he had. “‘The Bat' still puzzles him,” he answered, “but that slippery customer may also be within his grasp ere long.” 160 NUMBER 87 tation has delayed our future accord; and for that, not Europe, but a past President of their own is responsible.” “They will come in at their own time and in their own way,” prophesied Jacobs. “And royally welcome they will be.” Strossmayer returned to the unknown energy and spoke strongly. “We think so much alike—these secret people and Jugo-Slavia,” he said, “that we would gladly pay a million of money to get into touch with them. They doubtless need what we could furnish —wisdom—and Noble, who is really most inter- esting on this subject, believes that our unknown friends are at a loose end, as you say, and lack certain, guiding, philosophical principles without which no great movement can be advanced. It is summed up in that. But how to let them know? How to offer the hand of friendship?” The question offended some who heard it. “I would not willingly touch a hand red with the blood of my fellow creatures,” declared Bishop Blore. “Your perspective is faulty, Stross- mayer; you do not estimate these enormities in their true relation to righteousness, justice and civilization. To do confessed evil, that good may come, has no excuse and admits of no palliation on any ethical grounds.” A week later the Jugo-Slav invited Jacobs and myself to see Ian Noble in his laboratory, and though no date for the visit was fixed at that time, we gladly consented. “Only you two,” he said, “because you com- 162 NUMBER 87 “We are not soulless materialists in Jugo- Slavia,” he asserted on the occasion of a full club- room, when November had come and we were all returned. “No, no; and if anything I have ever said induces that suspicion, as I know too well it has, then rest assured you wrong us. We seek the promise of the new chemistry, because along that line the world’s future must lie; but for no selfish purpose do we pursue these objects. We cannot do worse than what the world has al- ready done; we shall, as a matter of fact, do far better.” “Why do you say you cannot do worse than has been done?” asked General Fordyce, who was among those who did not love Strossmayer. But his brother, not the foreigner, replied. “So far he is right enough. The world has made of Science a slave to war, has it not? She was drawn in by the tentacles of that dreadful devil-fish, as every other human activity and en- ergy; and fools have pointed to the fact and found in it a malign interpretation adverse to Science. Well may the new nations promise to do better than the old! They ought to do better. Did Science make the war? Did Reason, whose high- priestess Science is, plunge Germany into her appalling adventure? No, Hugh.” Jack Smith supported Sir Bruce. “As Art is prostituted, so may Science, or Religion, be,” he said. “You can no more blame the chemists for helping to win the war, since we had to win, or perish, than you can blame the painters who drew recruiting posters, or the poets 164 NUMBER 87 ‘the Bat.” But it was of a nature to increase man’s fear. The creature had rained death and evidently been concerned to make no mistake. Not only the obvious object of its attention, but half a hundred men who surrounded the Dictator and protected him against any assassin’s bullet, knife or bomb, were slain with him. He had moved isolated in the great procession, with a guard of Red troops about his person on every side, and a space around them, into which no spectator was permitted to enter. But death fell from the unguarded sky; the traitor to human- ity fell riddled by a dozen wounds, and with him not less than twelve of his companions and forty of the armed guard that marched beside them. None was wounded only, for a touch of the energy meant immediate death. For once the world welcomed this new demon- stration of power, and many wondered why Russia had not sooner been freed of her supreme enemy. The destruction of this monstrous portent was greeted with the thanksgivings of civilization, and went far to restore a feeling of confidence in all bodies of public opinion not vitiated by the new doctrine. But for those who were more concerned with the secret of ‘the Bat’ than its achievements, fresh interest was thrown upon that theme and new theories of its operations elaborated. These things had occurred a week or ten days before we visited Ian Noble in his workshop, and I recollect that when discussing them on an evening at the club, Bishop Blore particularly FROM RUSSIA TO CHINA 165 interested me by advancing an argument already familiar from other lips. “There are most certainly two of these flying avengers, if not more,” he said, echoing an opin- ion that had startled me when I first heard it from Sir Bruce at Grimwood. “I have suspected it for a long time and this proves the fact. The same thing happened in America, where examination of the distances traveled and comparative times will show that one agency could not embrace op- erations so widely separated.” “If there are two “Bats,” there may be ten,” argued General Fordyce, who, with the rest of us, was now back at Chislehurst for the winter. But Strossmayer doubted and, once again, showed an understanding of the situation that made many of his hearers the stronger in their suspicion of him. “It may be as you say, General,” he admitted, “yet I see no great force in the theory you advance. The new energy is very likely to be possessed of powers which practically annihilate both space and time. These, remember, are only concepts, not realities. My friend, Ian Noble, of course, follows every move with the closest inter- est, and the theory of two “Bats’ is not new. “He has considered it and discarded it. He believes there need be no more than one, because these varied and widely separated attacks in no case actually synchronize. There has always been a respectable interval of time between them— three hours elapsed in America, after the death of Judge Greenleaf Stubbs, before the destruction of FROM RUSSIA TO CHINA 169 of Strossmayer and Bishop Blore, he spoke in his usual voice, with neither the conviction nor inter- est that marked our conversations at Grimwood. But he remembered them and reminded me of them. “Granger will tell you that I anticipated your guess of more “Bats’ than one, Bishop. When he was with me in the country, I developed an argument along that line and rather surprised him by an opinion that, after all, we might be dealing with a living organism possessed of high intelligence and possibly trained by men to its peculiar task, as we train the cheetah in India to hunt and bring down the deer. But I have since found the notion impracticable, and I think my brother may be said to have given it a deathblow when he talks of ten ‘Bats.” One is awful and mysterious; ten become a joke. Mr. Stross- mayer's friend probably presents us with a view more in keeping with the twentieth century. He is doubtless a materialist, hungry to bend the ways of the world to his own measure. We may at least hope those who wield the secret, what- ever their apparatus, possess a keener vision than Mr. Noble.” Thus, unjustly and out of ignorance, he spoke, and when Jacobs strove to assure him that the Scot was by no means a materialist, but pro- claimed a view of humanity as generous as his own, the older man would not listen. From indif- ference he awoke to some bitterness, and when Strossmayer, who was incensed at his attitude, left the room, Sir Bruce explained his emotions— FROM RUSSIA TO CHINA 171 this harsh estimate; while, for my part, I felt melancholy and mystified, and Leon Jacobs, who caught my eye, clearly shared my confusion. In- deed I dated subsequent gradual changes in Sir Bruce from that conversation and proved, at least to my own satisfaction, that this intemperate and biased attitude was but a symptom of a wider indisposition, which slowly but Surely settled upon his intelligence. He began to grow old, as General Fordyce regretfully declared, before subsequent evidences of an uneven mind; but it was Sir Bruce's mental, not his physical, health which appeared to suffer. Indeed in body he was as energetic and unsparing of himself as usual. To me, and to all of us individually, he pre- served his customary courteous bearing and con- sideration for intellectual attainments not equal to his own; but in argument he now began to lapse from his old, reasonable attention to the views of those who might differ from him. He suffered opposition less peacefully, often made a personal question of differences in reality only a matter of opinion, and, what was curious, talked far more than he was wont to do and emerged from being our most silent member into one of the most garrulous. In the past he seldom con- tradicted a speaker, even though he might enter- tain opposite opinions; now he was prone to do so. His pessimism increased, and other marks of weakness also appeared, for I do not think that the gloomy views he took were the result of any theory of a Supreme Being, whose ways were not as ours, so much as a constitutional 172 NUMBER 87 attitude of mind, which, by its natural bent, re- acted against any hopeful outlook upon man’s future. He certainly suffered opposition less will- ingly and, as a very distant mark of weakness foreign to his former self, displayed an eagerness to be confirmed by other men in what he asserted. I do not, however, wish to convey the impression that Sir Bruce had lost all his former perspi- cacity and acumen. He was shrewd enough still and, upon his own subjects, as clear and mag- istral as ever. He manifested at this time a deep interest in the gravitational theory of Einstein, highly approved of it and endeavored, without much success, to state relativity in terms that should bring the implications of the new knowl- edge into the domain of philosophy. He watched the progress of ‘the Bat,’ though with diminished attention, and never hesitated to declare himself in agreement with the operations of the unknown energy. For a time, however, these appeared to be in abeyance. Nothing hap- pened to disturb the composure of the world, and the death in Moscow proved the monster of Soviet government no hydra, for with the loss of its head, Bolshevism began swiftly to decline, thus affording an illustration of an opinion Bishop Blore had always entertained and expounded. He held that while any formula of conduct con- taining the seeds of truth could not be destroyed, a rule founded on error was destructible; and he showed how the end of the Russian ‘Anti-Christ’ as he called the vanished tyrant, instead of in- CHAPTER XI THE UNENOWN IN OUR MIDST My visit to the laboratory of Ian Noble became an accomplished fact at last, and the circum- stances attending the event, as well as the oc- casion itself, will always be very vividly remem- bered by me and my friend, Leon Jacobs. For we were called to a small hamlet on the river Thames, not far distant from Taplow, and since the country was now gripped by a universal railway strike, the expedition had to be made by motor car. Deep in the rut of this disaster lay England now, and though a scheme for the em- ployment of voluntary labor was working effi- ciently, so the newspapers declared, attempts to travel speedily convinced the passenger that this was not the case. The best was being done within the powers of an army of enthusiastic amateurs; but something akin to stagnation marked trade traffic, and the true story stared starkly from all the great central depôts and at the docks of every port in England. Paul Strossmayer met Jacobs and myself at the Marble Arch in a motor car, which belonged to his Embassy. We therefore journeyed with speed and comfort to our destination—a raw, yellow brick building nestling not far from the 175 176 NUMBER 87 Thames and partially concealed by a little planta- tion of growing larches, now naked. Here labored Ian Noble, and dwelt in lodgings half a mile distant from the theater of his work. He em- ployed no assistants at this critical stage of his researches and we found him alone. He offered a friendly greeting and declared himself very glad to see us; but we noticed a change in him. He was obviously a brain-weary man and his assiduous toil had rendered him worn and rather haggard. Jacobs marked his appearance and expostu- lated. “You’re overdoing it, Mr. Noble. You are indeed,” he said. “I can see at a glance that you burn the candle at both ends. You’re looking ten years older than when we met in the summer.” “And feeling so,” admitted the chemist. “But one forgets time and toil on this trail. The hunt is too thrilling, the game too tremendous. I go to Jugo-Slavia after Christmas and can now ven- ture to say that I shall take with me something very much more important than myself.” “You men undervalue your own significance,” I declared; and he laughed, for I reminded him of a book which he had recently read. “We must stop in our place,” he answered, “and the average Englishman is very willing to keep us there. His scornful attitude does not change. A night or two ago I came across Dr. Johnson’s opinion of men who devote their lives to scientific research, and I hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.” THE UNENOWN IN OUR MIDST 177 “Dr. Johnson didn’t write much to laugh at,” said Jacobs. “But his point of view—listen. I committed the passage to memory, that I might recall it when I was inclined to fancy myself.” He then quoted from the great lexicographer, who appears to have regarded all men of science as innocent idlers. Thus he speaks of them. “Some turn the wheel of electricity; some sus- pend rings to a loadstone, and find that what they did yesterday they can do again today. Some register the changes of the wind and die fully convinced that the wind is changeable. There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colourless liquids may produce a colour by union, and that two cold bodies will grow hot if they are mingled; they mingle them and produce the effect expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again.” Noble shouted with laughter at this passage of massive irony, but Strossmayer was not amused. “Surely only an Englishman could have written that drivel,” he said. “Never mind,” answered the chemist. “He had not read the Report of the Privy Council for Scientific and Industrial Research which has just reached me.” Noble described with enthusiasm the work upon which he labored, and for a time forgot his own mental and physical weariness; but he bewildered us not a little by talking in the terms of his craft and using words which we had never even heard 178 NUMBER 87 before. Then, doubtless before our blank faces, he remembered that he had to do with laymen and simplified his exposition for our ears. “The subject is so new and so difficult, and the processes so delicate and complicated, that they have given rise in a sense to their own language,” he told us. “To describe them in popular terms is not easy at all. Energy, you understand, depends upon the mass displayed, the work done. The sea, or a waterfall, or a rail- way train reveal mechanical work. The energy of invisible molecules, translated into work, is heat energy; the energy of still smaller particles —the electrons—is electric energy. All energy means motion, and all springs from one source: the Sun.” “Show us a little of what you are doing, and why you are doing it,” suggested Jacobs. “I will,” answered Noble. “And bombard me with questions. Paul has accustomed me to ques- tions. He will have chapter and verse for every- thing.” “Only fair, as I, in the great name of Jugo- Slavia, pay the piper,” said Strossmayer. “The sinews of war are vital and you are gener- ous,” admitted the other. “Until our material comes within practical politics, these things that I am doing lie only in the region of millionaire’s experiments. That must be confessed; but what am I doing? I am seeking substitutes for our present great storehouses of power. Dr. John- son and his friends would say that I want better bread than is made of wheat; and that is what THE UNKNOWN IN OUR MIDST 179 every idealist and searcher for truth should want. I am frankly seeking powers that will turn those grubby giants, coal and oil, into dwarfs by com- parison. They, and our chemical explosives, do nearly all the world’s work at this moment, and we have discovered and applied the energies of fire and water to some purpose already. But what are their energies? We count them in terms of “man” power and ‘horse’ power still; yet compared with what is to come, we might number them in units of “ant’ power and ‘mouse’ power! Yes, from air, or earth, or both, we have yet to summon a radio-energy that shall be to these as the volume of Niagara to a child’s squirt.” He showed us retorts and unfamiliar chemical appliances, all small and delicate; and by experi- ment he indicated extraordinary forces developed from grains of matter that we could only see under strong magnifying power; but, as Jacobs frankly confessed, we did not know enough to appreciate in the least the results that he had attained. “We are like duffers looking at a professional billiard player,” I said. “We are so ignorant of the tremendous difficulties he is conquering, that we cannot realize his extraordinary ability.” Ian Noble was patient with us and helped us to measure something of his performance by the help of words. “Consider the radio-products,” he said, “and the emanations, gases and actual matter that these products give off. This is our field, and it ex- 180 NUMBER 87 plains how I am dealing in quantities of material almost too small for you to appreciate. Radium, polonium, actinium and other elements were found in pitchblende, and their discovery went far to complete the Periodic Table of the elements. Re- member that these elements themselves have only been recognized by man for about twenty years, and their isolation is of such inconceivable dif- ficulty, their mass so utterly insignificant, that they still lie in the region of transcendental chem- istry—to all save those we call by the general term of ‘the unknown.’” “Is the Chemists’ Periodic Table now com- plete?” asked Jacobs. “No-and that is the whole point,” answered Noble. “Between No. 79, which is Gold, and No. 92, which is Uranium, we have, thanks to radio-activity, filled every intermediate space but two. After No. 83, which is Bismuth, we get Polonium; No. 86 includes Rutherford’s emana- tions; No. 88 is Radium; No. 89, Actinium, followed by Thorium and Barium. This we still find vacant the numbers 85 and 87 only. And I believe, gentlemen, that I have discovered, in No. 85, the secret of the unknown l’’ We congratulated him heartily enough, and he explained the significance of his achievement. “When one considers how long it took man to learn the secret of fire and water and employ steam, we may well be patient with you radio- chemists,” said Jacobs. “Here lies a force far more tremendous than any displayed by the other elements—more tre- THE UNKNOWN IN OUR MIDST 181 mendous than all of them put together,” continued Noble; “and what is most important and must, of course, remain my secret for the moment, the raw material from which this element is extracted in no way resembles pitchblende. How generous earth may be of it—for it comes from earth, not air—we have as yet to learn; but this we know: the quantity exceeds by ten thousand to one that of any other radio-active element as yet within our reach, including helium.” “Thus you see how close we are on the tracks of the unknown,” said Strossmayer jubilantly. But the chemist calmed his enthusiasm. “He is still a very long way ahead, however,” explained Noble; “for he has not only discovered No. 85 in the Periodic Table, which we, too, have done; but he has accomplished a much greater thing and learned to harness it. There remains a still mightier task—the supreme achievement of all—and that he has not yet learned—and never Will.” “Shall you?” asked Leon Jacobs. “With the help of my fellow men—yes,” an- swered Noble almost reverently. “The chemist and spectroscopist,” he continued, “would have regarded my new element as isotopic, or identical, with Radium and nothing more; but the radio- activist must have instantly perceived, as I have done, that it is in reality something exceedingly different. I am now occupied with the problem of its power, and in that respect have convinced myself that such power exceeds anything of which we have the remotest experience; but there re- 182 NUMBER 87 main to unravel its duration, its rate of change and various other properties upon which will depend its ultimate value and usefulness. Of course the operations of ‘the Bat’ helped me there. I do not much fear a breakdown as to the usefulness of my element; but I may yet be disappointed, and, after all is done, I have yet to control the unique energy, break it in and set it to work—first for me—then 2 3 “For Jugo-Slavia,” said Strossmayer. “Then most emphatically for Jugo-Slavia,” answered Noble. “For Jugo-Slavia and, after- wards, for all the nations and kindred of mankind. To wrest from matter something that shall help not only man’s body but his soul—that is our ambition, Paul—yours as well as my own. And incidentally we shall reveal Science not as destroyer of old myths and miracles only, but as creator of purer faith and grander ideals—not an executioner of vanished creeds, that have helped man upon his way, but the arch-priest of a loftier revelation, whose altar is lifted in the name of everlasting truth alone. These prodigious ener- gies, now within the reach of man’s hand, must find him worthy of them, as I most steadfastly believe him to be. And they must observe no base and unsocial purpose, but be employed for highest uses—sacred uses if you like. Then we shall indeed see Science come into her own, as the recognized leader and dispenser of good for all. She will not persecute; she will ask no man to believe in her until he has verified her credentials; her creed will have no validity beyond that given 184 NUMBER 87 those we find. Indeed if a dozen men, or even half a dozen, had this secret, it would soon be a secret no longer. Federations keep no secrets. Doubt would creep into their councils: they would differ on points of policy—perhaps divide, perhaps fall out. Thus their secret might, through the channel of one or another impatient individual, emerge into the world. And in any case, no community of intelligent minds would work after this fashion, or thus apply their tremendous power. For what re- sults accrue to the world at large? Who is a penny the better? All that has so far been done is to create confusion and anger, and indicate, by the commission of extraordinary crimes, nothing more than that certain human ideals and move- ments are opposed to those of the unknown.” “Perhaps true in every respect but one,” granted Jacobs. “At Moscow it did humanity a service—though even that might be denied by a large body of mistaken men; but for the rest, it has altered nothing, helped no cause, hindered no great movement. You cannot kill an ideal by slaughtering its commanding officers. The pro- tagonists of an ideal at any one moment in time are nothing. Truth laughs at time, since only truth is immortal and can afford to be patient.” Noble agreed with these sentiments. “It follows,” added Strossmayer, “that we, who are not immortal, cannot afford to be patient. Patience is no virtue for us short-lived folk.” “What, then, do you think?” I asked, with a strange sensation, almost akin to fear, that I 186 NUMBER 87 “That, in fact, he is making a hopeless ass of himself,” summed up Paul Strossmayer. I found myself oppressed by my own thoughts before these conclusions, yet dared not voice them deliberately, or reveal my own knowledge. Un- consciously, however, I did indicate the possession of some secret information, by asking a question which astonished all who heard it. But to Noble’s ear it naturally appeared so irrational, if not childish, that it awoke no suspicion in his mind; neither did Strossmayer nor Jacobs see anything in it save matter for laughter. “Assuming,” I asked, “that what we call ‘the Bat’ were in. reality a living animal, as many intelligent critics still maintain, can you imagine that it might possess sufficient reasoning powers, or even self-consciousness, to come into cor- respondence with man? Is it possible that this unknown creature, if such it be, could communi- cate with, receive instruction from, and even obey the direction of, a human being? I imagine an organism with extraordinary physical gifts, and sufficient mind to learn the wishes and follow the orders of a superior organism—just as our dogs, which can do many things we cannot, have enough intelligence to employ their gifts of scent and speed for our convenience.” Ian Noble stared and the others expressed amusement. They lacked the chemist’s subtlety, instantly to link up these remarks with the mental- ity of the man who had made them; but this I could see that Ian Noble did. He looked at me with a new expression—a curious expression com- THE UNKNOWN IN OUR MIDST 189 eye of Jacobs and myself—had been stricken to dust by the unknown. There was a feature of this horrible event which brought back the existence of “the Bat’ to men's minds and intensified the vague terror of late somewhat dulled. On the occasion of this double murder, five independent witnesses vouched for the appearance of the creature. The night was clear with a waxing moon, and between the hours of nine and ten, a pair of lovers walking by the river had seen an enormous flying animal circling over the water high above them; a policeman on duty a mile distant also reported it; and a man and his wife, returning home to a cottage not far from Noble's laboratory, had observed it mov- ing low above a wood. The destruction of the laboratory was not discovered until the following morning; but at midnight, some hours after their death, the bodies of Strossmayer and the chemist had been found, where they fell, by a solitary laborer returning to Taplow. He had informed the police, and subsequent investigation proved that both men were slain by the familiar fatal blow struck into their backs. It seemed clear that the victims were returning to Noble's lodging when death overtook them. THE UNKNOWN IN OUR MIDST 183 to it by the evidence. But this I know: she will offer us a greater thing than philosophy has yet attained to, or theology brought within our reach —a formula destined to awake that enthusiasm for humanity which still we lack, and which the wit of man until now has proved powerless to create.” He spoke like a young Prometheus, with the beautiful faith and hope and fire of youth. He displayed before us a mind of distinguished qual- ity but small experience—a mind too prone to judge others by itself and credit mankind with its own pure purpose. But Strossmayer was before all things practi- cal. He displayed no particular interest before this vision of a world reconciled with itself, and asked a question. “What about ‘the Bat,” Ian? Have you thought any more on that subject?” “A very great deal, Paul,” answered Noble, coming back to reality and losing the radiant aura that for a moment had lightened and warmed his lank features. “Despite some evidence to the contrary, I believe, as I always believed, that we are not dealing for a moment with forces directed against us from outside earth. It would flatter my vanity to do so, for if that were the case, I should be first and not second to make the dis- covery of the new element. But this I certainly think: we are not up against a nation; we are not up against a secret society, or league. If even a dozen men ran what we call ‘the Bat,’ we should be faced with very different results from CHAPTER XII THE SUMMONS TO GRIMWOOD THE death of Paul Strossmayer and his accom- plished friend created a sensation that challenged the scientific centers of Europe and America. Ian Noble was already recognized as a man of infinite promise. His early career had been bril- liant and his genius none denied. His relations with the representative of Jugo-Slavia were com- mented upon, and it was pointed out to the British Government by those entitled to speak, that any system which ignored the possibilities of such a man stood self-condemned. Half in earnest and half in jest, it had been proposed that if Italy could put a veto against her art treasures leav- ing the land of their creation, so modern states should strictly preserve their scientific assets. For all thinking men understood that the future welfare of every nation must largely depend upon such possessions. But Government moved not and the great Universities, which might have spoken with authority, were ruled by those incapa- ble of lifting their trust beyond the Arts, wherein they supposed the world’s salvation to lie. A fury of inquiry burst out again upon the subject of the unknown, and again the utter powerlessness of man to cope with the adversary appeared. A most disastrous blow against human 190 THE SUMMONS TO GRIMWOOD 191 progress had been struck, and the majority of reflective persons perceived that, in the case of Ian Noble, there had been swept from the world an agent more fruitful of promised good and increased power than any of those who had passed before him. Few possessed much personal knowl- edge of the dead chemist; but some of these spoke through the Press and painted the picture of a high-minded and honorable servant of Science—a man concerned with the sacred service of truth for its own sake. Their account agreed in every particular with the opinion formed by Leon Jacobs and myself. Noble’s work had, of course, been conducted in solitude and with native caution; but though the principles upon which he proceeded were common knowledge to his peers, the destruction of his laboratory with all that it contained, left no vital material from which his new element might be rediscovered. Indeed, we found presently that Science knew no more than Jacobs and myself had already learned. It was currently rumored that Noble had discovered Element No. 85 of the Periodic Table; but more had not been divulged and few after his death were prepared to admit the truth of the report. Thus priceless progress in knowledge was arrested at its most critical moment, and Science knew too well that a generation, perhaps more than one, might pass before any future discoverer with the Scotsman’s genius would arise to carry on his broken task. But against that, the more sanguine pointed out that the secret was still in 192 NUMBER 87 the world and, to the unknown, a secret no longer. This insensate act appeared to bring the invisible assassins into a narrower radius of inquiry and tighten the loop around them. Many, indeed, as- serted that they must soon be discovered, and that the ceaseless investigation and unsleeping inquiry now awakened throughout civilization would have a speedy reward. A deep and sullen anger leavened man’s thought on the subject and I confess to a personal satisfaction that, for once, passion winged my friend Leon’s words and led him into the expression of stronger opinion than he often permitted himself. But at the club, dur- ing an evening that followed the double funeral, he spoke. The dead were laid to rest at Taplow and many attended the last rites. Representatives of Jugo- Slavia were present, the Royal Society was also represented, and the Jugo-Slavic family with whom Paul Strossmayer had resided at Chisle- hurst stood beside his grave. Ian Noble’s par- ents and a young sister came also, while Leon Jacobs and myself followed the small company out of respect for both dead men. And at the club that night Leon let himself go. “The malignant brutes may boast the brain of a god, but it is certain they have the heart of a devil,” he declared; “for what but accursed jeal- ousy could have prompted the murder of a man already great, a man inspired with nothing but good will to his fellow men? He never dirtied his hands with politics; he never took a bribe; he never sought to advance himself before others. THE SUMMONS TO GRIMWOOD 193 His one purpose was to forward the cause of human knowledge, and his sole ambition, through knowledge, to advance the welfare of us all and make the earth a happier place for pitiful mankind to dwell in. He never thought of using his dis- coveries for any but the purest purpose, and al- most the last words I heard him say were wise and kindly words concerned with this damnable des- troyer we call ‘the Bat.” “He was not jealous of it and fully he recog- nized the amazing skill behind it; but, in common with all just men, he lamented the narrow, bitter, mistaken scope of its actions; and he only re- gretted that it was impossible for him, or any other large-minded man, to come face to face with this power of darkness and convince the monster of its errors. He longed to explain to those behind the thing that their awful exploits were vain, their ingenious destructions committed to no good purpose whatever. “Noble pointed out that if a human ideal, or hope, promised real advance along the lines of moral evolution, then to cut off its head was not to kill it. Tyranny, even while triumphant, cannot confound or defeat truth; immortal mind must progress, though man falls again and again upon his journey. He was the sanest, most moderate young philosopher I ever met—a materialist in the highest and best sense—and I say that the power which robbed the world of him is an evil power and the avowed enemy of progress.” Bishop Blore was the first to speak after Ja- cobs had ceased. 194 NUMBER 87 “You tell us that the poor lad wished to be face to face with this thing, that he might convince it of error. But how, my dear Jacobs, could any man convince it, or reach its mentality before he had trained it to understand him, or learned how to understand it? That is, of course, assuming it not to be human.” “He assumed no such thing, Bishop,” I replied. “He was of opinion that, within this machinery of terror, there lurked human intellects, or rather a solitary intellect. And surely the argument is unanswerable. He traversed the whole scope of the unknown’s operations, and he asked us— Jacobs, Paul Strossmayer and myself—if it was in the bounds of possibility that a mighty being from another world, whether clothed in the shape of what we call a bat, or in any other physical form, would be likely to trouble itself about our parochial, two-penny half-penny interests—our art, or religion, above all, our politics? And so raised, the question is capable of only one answer. As for the alternative suggestion, he regarded the theory of some terrestrial animal with high intelligence, fetching and carrying at the direction of unknown men, as even more absurd.” “No,” continued Jacobs, “these things are human work, and more than that: they are the work of an individual. He must have a mind of enormous genius in one direction—a penetrating and synthetic mind supported by extraordinary natural gifts. As such, if ever discovered, he will take his place among the rarest intellects that have dawned on this planet since Newton; but it THE SUMMONS TO GRIMWOOD 195 is a mind which on the plane of human wisdom and understanding of social life is commonplace, reactionary, peddling.” “It must certainly be a mistaken mind,” ad- mitted the bishop. “The unfortunate individual, if you are right, has no doubt consecrated every energy and devoted his whole existence to Science. Thus he has denied himself experience of any- thing else, and his opinions concerning economics, ethics and social problems generally are worth- less. But religion need not of necessity be denied him. A fanatic, however, he must be—if such a man exists.” “Hence these tears,” added Jack Smith. “We are to believe that a mental infant is playing with this awful toy. But I do not think so. There is too much method in his madness, Jacobs. He knows very well what he is about and, for one thing, will brook no rival. Probably he never knew the dead men personally, and felt no more dislike for Strossmayer, or the chemist, than we do for the mouse we catch in a trap; but he sus- pected they were getting too hot on his trail and might presently be a nuisance. So he smudged them out.” We talked on, each uttering his own opinion; but we missed the familiar fire, the conviction and intensity of Paul Strossmayer. There seemed a hiatus again and again in our interchange, when some challenging or provocative remark was uttered. At such moments I waited, from force of habit, for the foreigner’s impetuous contradiction, or enthusiastic support, only remembering that he 196 NUMBER 87 was gone beyond question and answer, when no voice broke the silences. Upon this night both General Fordyce and his brother took their share of the conversation; but I recollect that Sir Bruce was the first to leave the circle, though not before he had enjoyed his customary ‘nightcap’ and con- tributed his opinions to the common store. He had declared unfeigned regret at Ian Noble’s end; but made no pretense of lamenting the death of the Jugo-Slav. It was not until five o’clock of the following af- ternoon that Sir Bruce returned to my mind and then, upon the conclusion of my day’s work, there came a telegram for me to the Apollo Life Assur- ance Society, in Cannon Street. Just as I was addressing myself to my final task, a message, very strongly worded, reached me from Sir Bruce Fordyce himself. “Come to me at all costs instantly. Vital to vast human interests. Take motor. B. Fordyce, Grimwood.” I confess that for fully ten minutes I sat be- wildered before this imperious demand. I am a man of no great physical courage and the thought of any unique and possibly painful adventure was exceedingly distasteful to me. The very idea produced sensations the reverse of agreeable and an instinct awoke, which strove to launch me along the line of least resistance. I felt, in fact, a strong impulse to ignore this entreaty. But reason speedily dismissed so cowardly a prompting. After all, I was a strong man. I trusted common sense and told myself that even THE SUMMONS TO GRIMWOOD 197 if it were Sir Bruce whom I had seen conversing with a sentient being from another plane of life —even if that hideous vision were real—then, de- spite the appalling fact, Sir Bruce would still be himself—a man of honor, of delicate sensibilities and high ideals. But was he sane? Again I hesitated, yet for a moment only. Sane or stricken, he wanted me, nay, actually needed me; and he spoke of vast human interests. It was impossible to shirk an appeal directed in such terms. England still lay under the incubus of the great Railway Strike, and though Sir Bruce had evi- dently got off that morning and returned to his country home, I guessed it might not be possible for me to find a night train for Devonshire. And the event proved that I could not. Inquiry at Paddington revealed no journey by rail possible until the following day; but there was an aérial service to the West of England and airplanes were flying from London by day and night. I had never flown, however, and did not intend to begin. I therefore took a taxicab to a garage familiar to me near Westbourne Grove, and set out to make arrangements. By chance, upon this very morning, there were indications that Labor and the Government stood on the brink of an arrangement, and before night- fall rumor ran that the railway men had come in sight of victory. Before the event, many tongues anticipated it and declared that the Prime Min- ister had taken a decisive step along the road al- ready so familiar to the nation. It was thought 198 NUMBER 87 that he would grant Labor the substance of its demands, while saving the Government’s face with certain shadowy and unimportant conditions. The conclusions which were hoped would emerge from this struggle had not emerged. The fun- damental question: ‘What is wages?” had not been answered. War had played havoc with the old principles of the economist, and the underly- ing idea of wages, as value given and value re- ceived, was a thing of the past. The war had placed every man at the service of the State, and since the State demanded the work, but ignored the old balance between the thing given and the thing received, wages had ceased to bear any re- lation to work. Labor was in fact receiving mon- strously more than it could earn on any rational rate of values. The employer, toiling for a State in straits, paid what his men asked, since their work was more important than the price. Thus the employer got his commission and the State received the goods, paying for them immeasurably more than they were worth save in the false eco- nomic light of necessity. The vicious circle had been forged, and “the cost of living’ became the excuse for open rebellion against all laws of econ- omy. Labor deliberately raised the cost of living and then demanded the wherewithal to meet the result of its own errors. It was now hoped, through the channel of the railway strike, that Government would convince the body of workers how, not the cost of living regulates wages, but wages control the cost of living. The lesson seemed half learned, the battle 200 NUMBER 87 A the country during the last three weeks. They won’t do that again—not good enough for a Ca– binet of Spaniels I’’ My splendid car made light of the tremendous journey; but progress proved slower than we had hoped, for the reason that all the great arteries of roadway traffic were congested with every sort of oil-driven vehicle, large and small. A ceaseless stream of motor cars, omnibuses and lorries rolled steadily out of London, and another stream as dense rolled back. It thinned by the time we had passed Reading, but at no point under con- dition of night was it possible to put the car to its full speed. We ran, however, at an average of nearly thirty miles an hour and having reached Exeter about two in the morning, proceeded with increased speed over comparatively empty roads, reaching Brent about an hour and ten minutes later. I recollected the way, and at half past three we turned into the great gates of Grimwood, slipped down through the avenue of elms, sounded our horn, to denote that we had arrived, and soon drew up before the ivy-mantled entrance. The doors were open; a light shone from within, and Sir Bruce himself, with his man, Timothy Bassett, stood at the portals to welcome me. Bassett took my place in the car and directed the driver to the garage, while Sir Bruce wel- comed me in the heartiest possible manner. He had made ample preparations for my meal and walked up and down his study, where it had been served, while I enjoyed it. A big fire blazed and THE SUMMONS TO GRIMWOOD 201 he had mulled a bottle of claret, that I might win warmth from it. He praised my industry and ex- pressed the greatest possible pleasure at seeing me. He was indeed grateful and expressed his thanks with monotonous and needless iteration. But I readily perceived that he was speaking me- chanically and thinking of something far removed from me and my supper, while he declared how good it was of me to respond thus swiftly. He inquired after details of my journey and ap- parently enjoyed an account of it, but, to my amazement, even when I had finished eating and drinking and drawn to the fire, Sir Bruce gave no indication whatever of his reason for putting this considerable task upon me. Finding him unprepared to speak, and guessing that he designed to postpone his desires until the next morning, I prepared to go to bed, declaring that he must sit up no longer. Then I noted my newspapers, which reminded me of the incident of the night before. “The strike is broken,” I said. “The railway men go back to work.” At this news he fell upon my evening journals with very keen interest and their contents awoke him into instant excitement. Until now he had been slow of speech and evidently much preoccu- pied; but it appeared that the particulars which I had brought banished from his mind every other consideration. He was furious: I had not seen him so angry, so hopeless and disappointed. . He permitted himself the utmost indignation and heaped upon THE SUMMONS TO GRIMWOOD 203 to his summons and then bade me good night and left me. Thoroughly worn out, I slept as I have seldom slept; and evidently by Sir Bruce's order I was not called next morning but allowed to have my slumbers out. Not until eleven did I awake, and guessed that it had been his wish I should begin the day in possession of all my wits and strength. But no ordeal awaited me, for after breakfasting alone, according to former custom, I waited in vain for Sir Bruce to appear. Bassett informed me that his master might de- scend at any moment. But at luncheon my host was still invisible and the gong brought no re- Sponse. A suggestion that he should be summoned was rejected by his man. “Against all rules, my dear,” he said in his familiar vernacular. “If Sir Bruce be minded to take his meat with you, he’ll come down along; and if he ban’t, then he’ll bide up over. Us be forbade to call him at any time.” CHAPTER XIII FACE TO FACE I FELT somewhat alarmed at an event to have been so little expected, and was as much concerned for myself as the master of Grimwood. My time pos- sessed value; and yet it seemed that he had utterly forgotten, both me and the fact that I must now be waiting his pleasure, to the detriment of my own affairs. Such discourtesy was so unlike my friend and delay at this moment so opposed to the urgent quality of the message which had brought me to Devonshire, that I could think of no explanation of an innocent nature. I approached Timothy Bassett and his wife, to find that neither shared my tribulation. They repeated their assurances that Sir Bruce often absented himself in this fashion and strongly ad- vised me not to challenge him, as I now desired to do. “He’s got his ways,” said Timothy, who evi- dently knew all about his master. “He’ll often keep up there for a day and a night together. If we was to break in upon Sir Bruce, there would be a proper tantara, and he’d send me and my wife and daughter going. It would be as much as my place was worth. Once I tried it, so I know.” 204 FACE TO FACE 205 His confidence restored my own. I determined that I would stop at Grimwood until the following morning and then, if Sir Bruce declined to appear, abandon him. I was somewhat indignant at such lack of consideration; but my anger turned into alarm as the day wore on. I lunched alone, with Timothy and his wife to entertain me; but though amusing in a bucolic fashion, I could learn but little about their master from them. They would talk of anything and everything save Sir Bruce. Him they exalted into a great personality; but they declined to give any details. The man led me to suspect, however, that he was a little frightened of his employer, and his wife, Nancy Bassett, did not hide the fact that she was also. “A wonnerful gentleman,” she told me. “He knows more’n us common folk, and that’s because he lived in India, no doubt, where there’s a lot more wisdom than in these parts. He’s got an Indian saying for most everything that happens. He don’t like Devonshire people very much. He says they be only your friends so long as you’ve got a stick in your hand, and that you’ll find wee- vils in a stone afore you’ll find sense in the farm laborers about here.” I laughed, and seeing that she amused me, the old woman proceeded. “Sir Bruce says, “if you’ve never seen a tiger, look at a cat, and if you’ve never seen a rascal, look at my husband.” That’s his fun, of course, for Timothy's his right hand. And Sir Bruce says that the lawyers and the tailors be too sharp 206 NUMBER 87 for the Angel of Death, and that God alone knows how to catch 'em. He don’t like lawyers, nor yet tailors, you see; and he says also that you should change your washerwoman when you change your linen, because a new one always washes clean.” She prattled on, while I ate my luncheon; and still Sir Bruce gave no sign. When the meal was over, I sent for the big car in which I had come, and the driver, weary of doing nothing, proved very glad to take me to Plymouth. The distance was but ten miles, and I determined to pass an hour there, send a telegram or two to London and Chislehurst, read the papers and learn the latest information concerning the end of the strike. We were quickly at our destination and, turning into a newspaper shop, I was staggered to hear tragic news. England had been startled to its very heart within that hour, for now, the time be- ing about half past three o’clock, telegrams came through announcing that the Hon. Erskine Owen was dead. He had died suddenly one hour earlier, but the manner of his end was not as yet known. At the office of a local newspaper I shouldered my way into the crowd surrounding the window, and presently won a little further information. The record was scanty, but it seemed that on the Premier’s arrival at the House of Commons, he did not alight briskly as usual, and a policeman looking into his private car discovered Owen ly- ing back motionless and apparently insensible. He was found to be dead. He had traveled from Downing Street alone, and the car, as the driver explained, had not been stopped upon the way. 208 - NUMBER 87 myself had already anticipated. I recollect the laconic wording of the tape. “Owen murdered by the unknown. Wound in back — — no evidence of how delivered.” Deep emotions mastered me at this statement, and I remember that my first instinct was to re- turn straightway to London in my car and not go back to Grimwood. For a time my excited intelli- gence associated Sir Bruce directly with the as- sassination and refused even to weigh the prayeti- cal impossibility of such a thing. Conviction above logic urged me away from the old man and his country home. I felt positive that he could not be there; and that, even if I desired to see him, he would not be found at Grimwood; but with a calmer mind I argued against this panic determi- nation and resolved to return instantly. For it appeared to me that my own honor must now, more than ever, depend upon so doing. No proof as yet existed to support any suspicions; and even if subsequent events did so, then to keep in touch with Sir Bruce might prove a national duty. If, indeed, he had done this appalling thing, then one could only suppose that he was mad; and a mad- man with the powers that he appeared to possess might threaten civilization within the next few hours. I was almost crushed under the weight of the possible obligations now thrust upon me, but acted as I believed for the best and, within the space of five minutes, was on my way back to Grimwood. I found myself in a state of nervous excitation altogether beyond my experience, yet strove to keep myself in hand and considered how FACE TO FACE 209 best I might act if the future put Sir Bruce into my power. The winter night had closed down and our head- lights flashed before us as we left the main road and penetrated the network of lanes to Grimwood. My driver had taken good note of the way and, thanks to a rare sense of locality, made no mis- takes. The car swiftly returned, but it was now night and the rolling woods that hemmed in the manor had already sunk into amorphous gloom as we descended the avenue into the cup below. The frost of the previous day had broken and a mild evening was misted by light fog that rose from the earth and filtered tenuously through the tree stems. Into this vapor we threw a great fan of illumination that marked the immediate course of our way, then faded upon surrounding dark- ness. The mist was heavier below and extended in white layers over the meadow lands—their pallor breaking through the night. And then, directing my driver to take the car to its place, I strolled to the front of the house and perceived that Sir Bruce's rooms were illumi- nated. Steady lights shone in the upper storey of Grimwood, and whether indeed he had been ab- sent or not during the morning, he was now cer- tainly returned. I strove to believe that he had never left Grimwood and hoped that he would now descend to welcome me, if he were not already downstairs. I forced myself into a conviction that my apprehensions lacked any solid basis; I even told myself that Sir Bruce would share the world’s horror when I broke the news of Owen’s 210 NUMBER 87 death. It was now five o’clock, and remembering that the Prime Minister had perished about half past two, it appeared obvious that my host could have had no direct hand in an event still barely two and a half hours old. Fortified by this thought I entered the house, rang for Bassett and inquired of him whether he had seen Sir Bruce and where his master might be. “He is in,” I said, “his lights are burning.” Timothy seemed surprised. “Course he’s in, master! He haven’t been out. |Us have got our own electricity, you see, and I’m clever enough to look after it. No doubt, when the dark came down, Sir Bruce lit up.” “You haven’t seen him?” “No, he ain’t been about. I reckon he’ll come to dinner bimeby; but if he don’t, there’s no call to be vexed. You mind his ways in the summer. He has his own ideas.” “But he telegraphed especially for me to come to him,” I explained. “I motored down last night at great personal trouble on his account, and he assured me that today he would tell me all he wanted me to know.” “Then be sure he will do so,” promised the old fellow. “He’s a terrible truthful gentleman, Sir Bruce is, and he won’t tell you no lies. But he has his own ideas; and all us have got to do be to fall in with 'em, and keep our mouths shut and ax no questions. He’s difficult to please sometimes, but who ain’t? Life’s life, whatever you be called to serve, and us all know that sparks are the lot of the blacksmith's legs.” 212 NUMBER 87 “Doan’t e, there’s a good man,” he begged, with a familiarity that was not in the least impertinent. “Take my advice and carry on as usual. The master knows very well as you be here, and he wouldn’t treat you uncivil without a proper rea- son. He wouldn’t treat a house-beetle uncivil for that matter—kindness made alive he is, I do as- sure you. But if anything could make him mad 'twould be to push in upon him, or break his peace. Only once—four year agone—when he’d been cooped up for three mortal days, did I ven- ture to forget orders and shout and say I must be answered, or I’d fetch the doctor; but I never done it again. He was all right, of course—busy about his ideas—and by gor! the lightning flashed from his eyes when he opened the door and leapt out like a raging lion upon me. Very near sacked me that instant moment; and it weren’t until my wife and widowed darter went on their knees to him that I was saved. And so it will be with you; you’ll lose the gentleman's friendship for ever- more if you thrust in.” As for the friendship of Sir Bruce, it must be confessed that I had ceased to covet that. He was certainly using me ill, and I did resent the fact that he could pursue his own interests, whatever they might at present be, and leave me to cool my heels and wait his pleasure after my great re- sponse. As Timothy truly remarked, his master knew I was in the house, summoned thither at his urgent direction, and I could only suppose some irregularity, if not an actual upheaval of mind, kept him in his apartments and left me idle and FACE TO FACE 213 puzzled beneath. But I had to leave it at that for the moment and, resolving to start for London at daybreak, I went to my room and prepared for dinner. The gongs rang punctually at the appointed times, one half an hour before dinner, the second at eight o’clock, when the meal was served. I de- scended at five minutes to the hour, hoping to find Sir Bruce in the study, but he was still invisible. I then strolled to the dining room, where two places were laid on the polished walnut-wood table. Timothy was opening a bottle of claret and had not seen Sir Bruce. “He’ll be stirring at the gong belike,” he told me. “You see there’s no call to wait upon him up over. He never had his own man and always looked after himself. He’s got all he wants in his rooms, and hot water laid on from the kitchen likewise.” At eight o’clock the veteran struck the gong, and as the sound rumbled through the hall and died away along the upper and lower corridors, Ann Ford, his daughter, brought a tureen of soup from the kitchen. Then Timothy turned up an electric light, which hung over the dining-room table, and I went into the hall, that I might greet Sir Bruce on his appearance. But he did not ap- pear. I waited for five minutes and then sug- gested a second warning, only to find that nothing could induce Timothy to touch the gong again. “You can go in and eat and drink,” he said, “for Sir Bruce ban’t coming. He’s so punctual as a cow in all his ways, and a thousand times I 214 NUMBER 87 have seed him turn the corner of thicky stairs afore the sound of the gong was still. If he had meant to take his dinner along with you, he’d have been down on the stroke. Early he may be, late never. He ain’t coming, master.” I stood irresolute and exasperated. The old boy carried the soup to the service table and Ann—a quiet woman of forty, who much re- sembled her mother—prepared to wait upon me. It seemed that there was nothing left either to say or do, and Timothy and his daughter attended quietly till I should take my seat. The situation was absurd, yet I saw nothing amusing in it. In- deed I experienced acute annoyance, while feeling at the same time there could be no sense in dis- playing any. But the mildest mannered man hates to look a fool through no fault of his own, and I felt not only that these impassive people were laughing at me behind the mask of their pleasant countenances, but also that, despite Bassett’s as- surances, he must really know more concerning his master’s movements than he pretended. The man and woman regarded me quietly and patiently while I strode up and down the dining room, irresolute and perturbed, with my hands in my pockets. Suddenly a desire took me to gaze again at the exterior of Sir Bruce’s apartments and I went to the French window, pulled back the heavy cur- tains drawn over it and flung it open. Before I walked out, however, the factotum spoke. “I shouldn’t do that, sir, if I was you,” he said, and for once I detected a quickening of his slow 216 NUMBER 87 and behave with reason, still hoping that Sir Bruce might be pleased to descend and spend the evening with me afterwards. But, before return- ing to the house, I recollected the impulse that had driven me from it and the motive: to gaze again at the outside of my host’s rooms and ob- serve if they were still illuminated. I stood off from the house, therefore, left the neglected and grass-grown terrace and walked out upon the gar- den, that I might get a look at the windows above. The light still burned in them and threw a gentle beam into the haze without. And then, in a moment, I became conscious of some slow and silent movement above my head and saw a patch of darkness blot the stars. It became swiftly larger, and though it was too dark to perceive its outline, this grew fairly distinct in a few seconds and I saw that the object was descending straight upon Grimwood. It became defined in a moment and my eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, made out a gigantic flying animal that wheeled once, then turned and, after remaining station- ary with outspread pinions, slowly descended upon the roof of the manor. It settled as gently as an owl upon the battlemented summit, then furled its wings and turned round with its long neck stretched forward over the terrace be- neath. The movements were automatic, and just such as any bird would have made when alighting in this position. The thing had perched immediately above Sir Bruce’s windows, and I could see its bat-like head, its ears laid back and the glow-worm light CHAPTER XIV NUMBER 87 WHEN consciousness returned I found an arm supporting a glass of spirits at my lips. Instinc- tively I drank of it and then heard Sir Bruce thank God. But it was not his arm that held me up. Timo- thy Bassett knelt beside me and sustained me. “Have no fear—all is well,” said Sir Bruce, and then I perceived that he stood beside me, but in strange attire. He was clad in tight-fitting black from head to heel and his head appeared to be enveloped in a heavy black cowl with ear- pieces. Indeed only his eyes, nose and mouth were visible. I gazed wildly about me for the monster; but it had vanished, and after a few words, Sir Bruce withdrew. “Bassett will give you an arm,” he said. “Re- turn to the dining room and try to make a good meal. I will join you shortly.” Then he spoke strangely to his old servant. “Be ready to leave—all of you—in three hours” time, Timothy. Tell your wife and Ann to set about their preparations at once. For tonight you can convey yourselves and your goods to the empty lodge. There you will be safe. And have no fear for the future. All of you are amply pro- vided for.” 219 220 NUMBER 87 He left us, having seen me again on my legs, and I now observed that Bassett was in a con- dition of supreme dejection and misery. “It’s all over; it's all over,” he kept mumbling, nor did he appear able to answer the questions I put to him. He gave me an arm to the house, but I was now recovered and presently contrived to eat and drink. While I did so, Bassett who waited on me alone, seemed concerned for his own future. “Us was sworn to say nought,” he explained, “and I pray God that no evil will fall upon me and my wife and child. We’re innocent as unborn babes—the three of us.” Knowing nothing, I said nothing. Sir Bruce appeared before I had finished and himself partook of a little food; then, somewhat dizzy and unsteady, I followed him to his study. He still wore the singular garments, but had removed his cowl. He was very pale, his eyes flickered with a strange light and the woe of the world appeared to rest upon his forehead. He bade me take an easy chair and then began his story without preliminaries. “I shall leave you a brief manuscript,” he said, “and I ask you to publish it in The Times at an early date. Before we part, I will read it to you. The document covers all the ground of my actions and motives, my ambitions and my failure to achieve them. Together with what I am now going to impart, it embraces the whole story. I have chosen you as the recipient of my confidence, and I know, arduous and painful though the task NUMBER 87 221 has been and may yet be, you will not blame me in that matter. That I should have caused you this terrible shock tonight I deeply regret. I had planned not to do so, and only the unexpected accident of your leaving the dinner table and com- ing out upon the terrace precipitated the misfor- tune.” He broke off for a moment, then plunged into his extraordinary narrative. “When radio-activity was discovered and the new elements appeared, I found myself deeply interested in the subject. I devoured the scanty information to be obtained, and fifteen years ago, when on holiday in England, studied in the French laboratories and learned all that could be learned up to that time. A natural bent inspired me, and when I returned to India for my last term of official service, I devoted every moment of my leisure to radio-activity. The story of my labors will perish with the results of them. It suffices that by a strange accident on an expedition in the Sikkim, I found a new element and proved it to be No. 87 of the Periodic Table. The late Ian Noble, as I know now, discovered No. 85, and concerning that I can say nothing. No. 85 has disappeared with Noble himself; but from what I heard Strossmayer say at the club on the night before I killed him, I believed that it was No. 87 Noble had found. That No. 85 possessed the ubiquitous powers of my element I cannot sup- pose. No. 87 is the King of Elements—whether in this world or any other. “My element, forever nameless now, and des- 222 NUMBER 87 tined to be hidden from this generation with my departure, is distributed under certain natural conditions with the utmost profusion. An ex- traordinary chance—little likely to happen again —placed it within my reach. I quickly perceived that the supply was enormous and after sustained and tireless experiments, I found myself able to secure the energy at will and in quantity far in excess of any private requirement. For three years I matured my processes and did not leave India until I had discovered, not only the com— plete attributes of the element—its duration and so forth—but also the means by which it might be controlled and applied. The stupendous difficul- ties attendant on radium and other radio-active material are modified in connection with mine. It is an amenable giant. “What are its attributes, and what its prodi- gious significance to mankind, you will learn from my manuscript. What I have done with it you already understand, because the facts are common property. I am the “Unknown.” The events of the last year are my work and mine only. When I left the Civil Service and retired, I came to Eng- land armed with my secret; and it was my orig- inal purpose to place it at the service of our Government. For reflection convinced me that to make it public and inform the world of what I had found, might inevitably defeat my own ambitions and desires. But we were now im- mersed in the Great War, and apprehending only too certainly the purposes to which the energy would be applied, I determined to conceal it. At 224 NUMBER 87 “But through slow stages, now seen clearly enough by me, I paid the price of that fearful strain. It wore me down; it deteriorated my in- tellect; it found the faulty ingredient within my own nature and finally drove me into the actions I deplore too late. I had conquered much; I had withstood the ordinary human weakness for fame, for the applause of my own generation and the honor of generations to come. These allure- ments passed me by; but I was not proof against myself, and those dangerous constituents of char- acter ingrained in my own personality and now to be liberated by my weakening intelligence.” He broke off for a moment upon a subsidiary theme. “I am a pessimist,” he continued, “and we will consider that for a moment. What is it, Granger, to be a pessimist? Pessimism is a mental atti- tude and indeed, the only logical standpoint of mind, given certain postulates. When discontent with things as they are takes the form of pessi- mism, it is indeed a “divine discontent,” if it em- bodies the desire to lift mankind from the slough upward and onward to nobler conditions and higher happiness. Such pessimism is justified of her children, and I have never denied my pes- simism, or been on bad terms with myself for embracing that attitude. ‘‘I found myself, then, on the horns of an in- tolerable dilemma. I proved to myself by a thou- sand secret experiments that I had discovered a panacea for much earthly suffering, and I also convinced myself that, since this discovery was NUMBER 87 229. I ventured to beg him to reconsider this deter- mination; but he did not so much as reply. “Here,” he said, gazing about him, “is the theater of my gigantic and futile achievement. Now I will furnish you with details. The place, as you see, was admirably adopted to my needs, and circumstances enabled me to slip into it so naturally that no suspicion has ever attached to my possession. Only three persons have known that my actions were extraordinary, and they have but dimly guessed at them. In any case they were faithful and loyal. They would never have divulged any of my secret movements—my goings and comings, or the manner of them. They are wholly innocent of anything but supreme devotion to me, and the truth was, of course, completely hidden from them. Take pains to make that clear, and see that the terms of my will, in so far as it touches them, are carried out. All three are provided for.” We had reached a shallow flight of wooden steps as he spoke, and in a moment I was standing beside him on the roof of Grimwood. Here, within the battlements and at a point invisible from the ground, stretched a large and level space of asphalt, and at one end was a low shed. It reminded me of the roof at Sir Bruce’s bunga- low in Chislehurst. He bade me stand still, then proceeded to the little building and drew from it, as we might bring a horse by its bridle from a stable, “the Bat.” By one hand on its neck he led it, and it seemed to glide after him. For a moment the horrible 230 NUMBER 87 sense that I still faced a living animal possessed me; but I stood firm and swiftly perceived that I confronted nothing but an exquisite engine built in the natural lines of an aerial animal — bird rather than bat. It was long and spare, created obviously for speed and modelled, as to its exterior, half a brute and half a bird. Sir Bruce touched a lever and the machine’s saucer eyes were illuminated; at a touch again it unfurled its great, taut wings. “The speed is not in them,” he explained. “They steer me, no more. This is not an airplane, but a projectile.” He showed me his seat in the body of the creature, and the place of the power, emitted from the region of the vent. It was clear that the engine, or whatever it might be, occupied but little space, and the entire machine, so Sir Bruce informed me, weighed no more than two hundred and fifty pounds. “It might be much lighter save for the neces- sity of great speeds,” he explained, and then, while I examined the thing, he continued. “Having determined to apply my power to the world’s gain, as I believed, there rose the ques- tion of how to do so. Were my time to come over again, I should proceed on different lines and start with the assumption that human life is sacred; but the gods seldom give a man a second opportunity. In my original design, the death of enemies to the human race formed the salient feature. It was necessary, therefore, to do two things and employ my energy, not only as a means NUMBER 87 231 of destruction for my enemies, but a means of sal- vation and security for myself. So I built this engine with a double object and speedily found that it would meet every requirement, make me in- dependent of time and space and secure my com- plete personal safety. It is made of aluminium treated with my new element itself. It has ceased to be aluminium, therefore, and become transmuted to another mineral under the radio-active energy applied to it. Thus you have something even lighter than aluminium and a thousand times more stable. No known amalgam would be able to sup- port the air pressures to which this machine has been subjected. It is impossible to describe them in terms of our knowledge, or suggest the speeds attained. But they are nothing to what greater engines, with increased facilities for outpouring the driving force, might attain.” He showed me the machine from its beak and electrically lighted eyes, to the wings—constructed of a metal so thin that it appeared almost trans- lucent. He displayed the tripods, fashioned like huge birds’ claws, that supported it and a hun- dred other minor details all more or less sugges- tive of a living thing. Apart from its powers, the machine was an extraordinary work of art. He then broke the thread of his explanation and dwelt upon a subordinate point, which interested him more than it interested me. “We will return a moment to the question of speed, which is closely connected with gravitation. Einstein does not hold gravitation a force, but merely a distortion, or crumpling up, both of NUMBER 87 233 perhaps, form some idea of what my element means. At such a speed day and night follow upon each other like sunshine and flying cloud shadow. Thus time and space are crumpled, as we take a sheet of paper and turn it into a ball. The wings of the engine are, of course, only used for starting from and descending to earth. When I am mov- ing, the pace would tear them from the hull in an instant. This is, in fact, as I have already told you, not an airplane but a bullet, or rather a rocket, that carries its own propelling force along With it.” He then returned to himself. “I erected this thing for my own security first, and secondly that I might be independent of space and time; I then invented the engine to liberate my energy upon earth, so that I can fertilize a field, or throw down a city at will; and, lastly, I invented the weapon with which I destroy men.” He took something from the inside of the machine and showed it to me by the light of its eyes. It looked like a long, steel knitting needle set in a small pistol handle. But the needle was hollow. He then put some objects a little larger than pins into my hand. “You may liken this thing to a revolver and these to the cartridges with which I load it,” he explained. “These objects contain, first the charge of No. 87 that speeds them on their way at the tremendous pressure necessary to drive so small a thing, and secondly an explosive frag- ment of the same material in the tiny shell, which operates after the victim has been struck. The 234 NUMBER 87 difficulty was to correct the charges for both purposes. Experiments on big game in central Africa enabled me to reach the correct values.” He dwelt upon these technical details and also explained the material of the receptacles of the energy, which, like “the Bat,’ were only created with the help of the energy itself. Without it, I gathered that the power of using it would never have been possible, and here the inventor’s diffi- culties had been enormous, his results extraordi- nary. He had made a new synthesis of minerals and achieved what were, for practical purposes, new metals with a resisting power beyond all experience. “Come,” he said. “You have now seen what is necessary and can retain the recollection until you have leisure to set it down. We will go back, and I shall tell you how I did what I have done and then read my measured statement—my apologia and farewell.” We descended and he continued his description in detail. “I knew that Alexander Skeat lived at Queen Anne’s Mansions and understood that it was his custom to return home on foot after a lecture, or evening entertainment. I learned his movements therefore, and leaving my bungalow at Chisle- hurst, where my engine was concealed on the flat roof, descended in St. James’s Park a minute later, flung a covering over the machine, which rendered it practically invisible by night, and waited for Skeat, who would almost certainly re- turn home by way of the Suspension Bridge. He —------------ 236 NUMBER 87 again, and again the suggestion of some fabulous animal won ground in the common mind. “Lorenzo Poglaici’s death in mid air furnished a scene worthy of a poet’s pen. Twice I had flown over the sleeping city of Fiume without adventure and also returned; but on the third night, this picturesque pirate also flew, according to his cus- tom, and I met him and shot him in mid air. He attempted to fight and fired his revolver fruit- lessly. The mark of a bullet may still be seen upon the body of my machine, but it could not penetrate. “Of Bronstein, Clos and Paravicini, it was the second whom I went to Italy to destroy. I con- cealed my vehicle in the Campagna, took train from a little station to Rome next morning and discovering the lodging of Gerard Clos perceived his route and engaged a couple of rooms in the Piazza di Spagna overlooking it. I shot him and his accomplices in crime from a window at a range of thirty yards, left my apartments on the following day, regained my machine and returned by night. It took me far longer to walk from the little station to the thicket of concealment, than to return from Italy to England. In America, I could have destroyed the churches in New York within a minute of the time when Greenleaf Stubbs fell, but to do so by day must have meant the destruc- tion of many innocent beings. I waited for dark- ness therefore, at an elevation above human sight. From the moment when I finally left New York to the hour I alighted on this roof, might have been less than a minute; but again I was delayed 238 NUMBER 87 He stopped weary enough of his own voice; but I could say nothing. I was only concerned to commit to memory all that he had told me. Presently he spoke again. “I was not aware that you had seen me in the glade the night before you left me, Granger. Per- haps the course of the world’s history might have been modified had you summoned courage to challenge me when you returned to the house. After bidding you good night on that occasion, I took my machine out with a view to running a few thousand miles and seeing that all was well. I had not been in the air since my return from America and had encountered heavy weather on the way back. There will be no weather where I am going tonight — a curious thought: no weather. Some trifling fault in the electric light- ing caused me to descend a moment after starting. The head of the machine was lowered to mine, that I might adjust it. I rose again, ran for five min- utes, sped as far as North Africa, and was prob- ably back in my apartments before you returned to the house. Is there anything else that occurs to you?” I considered. For a moment I had been over- whelmed by the thought that possibly my coward- ice had altered the story of the world’s progress. But the immensity of the idea was, perhaps hap- pily, more than my brain could receive. I put the thought from me and one recollection, of ludicrous insignificance, occurred to my mind. “Had you anything to do with the phenomenal NUMBER 87 239 crop of wheat you showed me on one of your farms last August, Sir Bruce?” He nodded. “Yes; before the wheat was sown last spring, I trickled the element upon that field, knowing corn was to be planted there. Whether it would blast, or invigorate the crop, I could not tell. It was applied in the most sparing quantities pos- sible. There is no doubt that in this connec- tion radio-activity will produce results upon our foodstuffs impossible to measure without expe- rience.” He rang the bell and Timothy Bassett ap- peared. “Are you nearly ready?” he asked. The old man was cast down and tearful. “Us be most done, master,” he said. “Have no fear for the future, Bassett. And see that the dogs are removed from the kennel when you go. Mr. Granger will summon you shortly. Now bring something to drink; and each of you take a silver memento of me from the dining room. Then remove all the silver and the family portraits to the empty lodge, where you will spend the night.” Timothy departed and soon returned with spirits and a siphon. “My will is with my lawyers,” explained Sir Bruce. “My brother will learn that the family possessions, such as they are, have also been deposited with him, save for the things that Bas- sett will look after. Hugh is a man in ten thou- 240 NUMBER 87 sand. The shock of my departure will probably end his days.” He drank and then took his manuscript from the table and read it slowly to me. Life can never parallel that solemn experience. CHAPTER XV SIR BRUCE's NARRATIVE I “IT is a melancholy fact that the flower of human happiness never yet opened without revealing a worm in the bud. Out of new happiness, new sorrow will infallibly be created, and within the heart of the increased prosperity lies hidden an invisible germ, which must presently develop new forces making against happiness. Thus the eter- nal circle is completed and the tradition of human suffering sustained from generation to generation. Every human advance, every state of melioration, will still bear along with it the inherent defects of its qualities. In their turn the defects are conquered; another advance is won; and from that advance, new trials, problems and sufferings grow, to keep the children of men in a state of everlasting strife against circumstance. For every battle won promises a crop of new foes sprung out of our very triumphs—a new skeleton at our feast of success. “We walk the stern road of reality, but keep our eyes and hopes forever lifted to the unreal, since happiness is no more, at best, than the fitful fire of summer lightning against the dark- ness of the night in which we move. 241 242 NUMBER 87 “When I discovered the new element, this fact, concerning the truth of happiness, was uppermost in my mind, and before all things I perceived how, from a prodigious, potential blessing, there must arise also the inevitable, new peril hidden in every blessing. For once the danger was not concealed: I perceived it as readily as I perceived the immense access of human happiness to be hoped from No. 87. One had to weigh the one against the other. “Dean Inge remarks, with that luminous bit- terness peculiarly his own, that the fruit of the tree of knowledge always drives man out of some paradise; but my hard-won fruit promised to create a new paradise of this desert we call life— to link the oases in it and turn the dreary antres into smiling gardens. With unspeakable joy I first dwelt on this aspect of my discovery and welcomed its stupendous promise. I believed that Providence had sent my element to make good the void created by the Great War; I pushed for- ward sleeplessly and it was not until the power to apply and control my radio-active agent had been perfected, that real difficulty and doubt gathered like a fog around me. The application presented problems greater by far than either the discovery, or the control. “I knew the danger of letting my discovery pass into the hands of middle-men—those para- sites bred out of feudal law and corrupt govern- ment, which fasten like a tick on the back of all civilized nations. My problem was to apply the energy to universal good purpose; but the ma- 244 NUMBER 87 But reflection steadily darkened this opinion, and when I came to particulars, I dared not take any into confidence. “Where were the minds; where the pure pur- poses; where the philosophic spirits to be en- trusted with my discovery? They did not exist in any State. And still they do not exist. Man continues subject to a thousand shattering in- herited instincts; his life is still too much a ques- tion of the survival of the strongest; his tempta- tions are too real; his ideals are too base; his ambitions too earthy; his values too gross. He cannot be trusted in the lump; and had better not be trusted at all. “Certain men and women, indeed, I thought upon, and knew them for noble beings of unstained honor, inspired alone by enthusiasm for humanity and love of truth. But these were not of the world. They lacked knowledge of affairs, or the practical problems that faced me. These fine souls were above and beyond any sense of the sordid proposition that challenged my attention. I had seen the influence of such men and women on executive operations and perceived how, out of the idealistic flowers they offered, came no seed corn to banish the hunger of men. Is it not Montaigne who says that one laughs, not at man’s folly, but his wisdom? “Still therefore I kept silence, although every instinct of the true-born scientific inquirer prompted me to proclaim my discovery; for is not concealment of knowledge the sin against the Holy Ghost — a blow struck at the very spirit of 246 NUMBER 87 I have revealed proves once again, if it wanted proof, that no man is strong enough to live to himself; that only along the line of inter-com- munion, fellowship and social co-operation lies any hope for humanity. I put my trust in myself —one no more fitted to judge and condemn than any other. In fighting the forces of superstition, I was grossly superstitious; in laboring against the might of unreason, I was irrational. I com- mitted all the evils I sought to combat; I used my divine energy exactly as I feared it would be used, if placed in the hands of civilization; I displayed no broad understanding, but a native prejudice and hatred of certain activities and personalities; I proceeded on no philosophic prin- ciple, but with the narrow-mindedness, malignity and ignorance of a fanatic and partisan. And I have lived to taste my reward, and see how I advanced, rather than retarded the ambitions of those protagonists I swept out of life; how my tyranny brought fresh followers to their tyran- nies, new grist to their accursed mills. “Woe to me that while I mistrusted all other men, I could not extend that distrust to myself! “I destroyed Alexander Skeat, holding him a sinister force opposed to national honor and genuine progress. He was an avowed enemy of Science and a scoffer at tradition. What he stood for, rather than himself, called for opposition; but his bad manners, egotism, cynicism and lack of any constructive idea might well have been trusted to efface him and his books in fulness of time. “After his death, I took part in the subsequent SIR BRUCE'S NARRATIVE 247 discussions, and myself deliberately contributed to confusion of the issue. The appetite grows by what it feeds upon, and a personal deterioration swiftly developed, taking the shape of unscientific delight in my power and unsocial satisfaction in the possession of my secret. I knew myself unique and felt that the kingdoms of earth would fall down and worship me if I invited them to do so. The disparity between my research and my appli- cation must ever form a melancholy subject for psycho-analysis. I held the thunderbolt of Jove and might have rent the round world, or torn a dozen fresh volcanoes in its bosom; I might have swept continents, divided seas, poured fertility upon the hungry lands of the earth; brought manna from heaven; but such was my parochial mind, faulty judgment and failing sense of pro- portion, that I opened my campaign with no worthier initial effort than the murder of an intel- lectual conjurer whose activities were sterile, whose fate was of no earthly importance to any- body but himself. “The Albert Memorial, being worthless on all counts, I employed experimentally. It would have been as easy for me to leave a heap of gold in its place as the transmuted dust they found there; but the playhouse which I subjected to my energy had provoked in me a personal animus. Its enter- tainment I held inimical to all dramatic progress. I know now that it was in reality harmless and even modest as compared with kindred produc- tions of which I have since heard; but on a per- sonal visit, and from a personal standpoint, I SIR BRUCE'S NARRATIVE 249 struction may unchain fresh furies, under condi- tions such as our generation has never known, but will yet suffer. I have lived to see the place destined for Greenleaf Stubbs occupied by one who will chastise with scorpions, where he would have used whips. I have lived to loosen the pre- cious bonds that united England and America, by the murder of that man. “Lorenzo Poglaici’s death served only to hasten an end which the good sense of his nation and the wisdom and patience of Jugo-Slavia must have finally attained, without the destruction of that erratic genius; while not a mad hope, or criminal design cherished by the dead anarchists, Bronstein, Clos and Paravicini, has departed out of the hearts of their supporters with their assassination. I have heightened rather than dimmed, I have hastened rather than retarded, their red visions of the future. “Ozama, the Japanese, and that appalling being who has brought Russia to the abyss, come next. The first I slew for his dishonor. He lied to China and prepared to build an infamous con- quest on the foundations of falsehood. I had narrowly watched him for three years, and find- ing no great Power ready, or willing, to intervene on the part of his distracted victim, herself rent in twain, I struck—only to find another of the tribe of Ozama spring into being and carry on the evil work. “My act in Russia needs no expression of re- gret. Here the forces of evil did actually con- centrate in the brain of one man, and the harvest 250 NUMBER 87 of my blow at Moscow is already green above the ground. “But no anarchist in the world’s history has ever destroyed a life more precious and rich in promise than have I, when ignorant of truth and fearful that my secret was discovered, I sent Ian Noble out of the world. That awful error crowned my life with a crime as dark as any in the annals of international wickedness. The train by which I reached my mistaken opinions can easily be followed and the vital point occurred at Grim- wood during August last, when Ernest Granger offered to tell me of his personal experiences with Noble at our little Club of Friends. Had I listened to what he was anxious to narrate, this story might have ended in a manner very dif- ferent; had chance brought me into contact with Noble, I should have welcomed his wisdom, per- haps even bestowed upon him as a legacy my knowledge, strong in the consciousness that he would put it to higher purpose than I, and efface the memory of my actions. But chance willed otherwise. I never met him, and I never heard the truth concerning him until he was gone. Instead, through Paul Strossmayer, whom I de- tested from the moment of our first meeting, I learned that his chemist had discovered the secret of radio-activity and was about to convey it from England to the service of Jugo-Slavia. Upon that information, myself now fallen far from my own sense of justice and ancient judicial faculties, I struck at once, murdered both men and destroyed the life-work of Noble, together with himself. SIR BRUCE’S NARRATIVE 251 Five nights later I heard the truth of what I had done, and resolved to perish ere my fallen reason committed further crimes against the world. I knew my mind was now disordered and felt that while there remained to me the power to act, I must depart. For my self-control is rapidly passing from me; my intellect is sinking into decay; I am no longer responsible to myself for my actions, as the death of Erskine Owen sufficiently testifies. Nothing save a frantic hatred of his error made me murder him. But shall all men who err pay the price of death for it? “And now I die, not by the hand of man, but my own. My soul has withered and my humanity shrivelled under this scorching test. Only death remains; and my body shall pass to win a tomb in forgiving space; for the dust of which I am formed is unworthy of return to the earth that lent it. I will remove myself from the world for- eVer. III “ “Nothing requires a rarer intellectualism than willingly to see one’s equation written out,’ says George Santayana, the wise Spaniard. Such an experience is, however, not new to men of science, and many a servant of truth has been called to face obliteration of his own equation, and see the faithful labors of a lifetime undone as soon as completed. Would that my actions also might be undone along with myself; but they lie in an- other category than truth and must take their place in time for evermore. To depart needs no courage, for I hunger to do so. That has long 252 NUMBER 87 been pre-determined; but it was only within the last days that I have become fixed to write out the equation of my discovery also, leaving the secret for future generations to re-discover. “My life and death serve, at least, one purpose and furnish a lesson and a warning for the world. Since Science now lifts her sceptre and ascends into her throne, she must be recognized for the beneficent power to which mankind shall largely look for their contentment, their reconciliation and their happiness. The promised land is a real land, and though my foot may never tread it, my eyes have seen the dawn grow white above its hills and valleys. But before man attains unto it, more than ever grows the necessity to compose his enmities, his jealousies, his rivalries, and prac- tice that renunciation and self-denial, which alone can maintain the spiritual greatness of Kingdoms or breathe life into any League of the Nations. And this I also see: that my fellow creatures must share their world in a larger understanding, a more generous faith, a more international love and compassion ere this, my discovery, can be com- mitted to their charge. “Before No. 87 is again at the service of man- kind, may the earth have sufficiently advanced along the road of reason to make honorable use of it; for that the energy must once more be revealed, if not to our children, then to the generation that follows them, is certain. That those who finally attain the treasure will use it faithfully, we can hope and pray, yet may not affirm. “This, at least, is certain: there will come a SIR BRUCE'S NARRATIVE 253 time—it may be soon, it may be late—when man shall achieve the power to mend his earth, or end it; and it is equally sure that not one nation ex- ists today which could be trusted to employ such an energy with a purpose unstained by human greed, or that national selfishness and lust of possession which vitiate so much of promise to mankind. Again and again we stretch out our hands with a welcome for the evangel of glad tid- ings and good will; again and again our cheers sink to a sigh, as man once more stones his proph- ets, crushes the weak, and denies his little children the milk of human kindness and the bread of truth.” He finished, rolled up his manuscript and gave it to me without inviting comment. “And now farewell,” he said. “Thank you for what you have done, and what you have yet to do. May life still contain good things for you and afford you such content and peace as you well deserve.” He perceived that I desired to say much and reason with him; but he rose, lifted his hand and indicated that he could not hear me. CHAPTER XVI THE LAST OF GRIMWOOD IT is strange how the idlest detail serves to punc- tuate a tremendous event, and how memory will often preserve the trifle clean-cut, while mightier matters already grow dim and elude our recollec- tion. Upon the night of that strange exodus there arises one vision whenever I think of it: the pic- ture of Nancy Bassett weeping and carrying a basket, which contained a mother cat and four kittens. Sir Bruce summoned his people, when he had taken farewell of me, and bade them “good-bye’. They shook his hand and went their way in the extremity of grief. Then I, too, left him and joined my car, where the driver awaited me a quarter of a mile from Grimwood. Bassett, his wife and daughter had brought their own belong- ings, and such things as Sir Bruce directed—old family pictures and other possessions—to an empty lodge which stood here. But dimly aware of what was to happen, we grouped together in silence waiting for the event. I knew that Grimwood and all it contained was now to be destroyed, that Sir Bruce would charge his engine to the utmost capacity and then, mount- 254 THE LAST OF GRIMWOOD 255 ing through earth's atmosphere, perish and pursue his way in his flying tomb, whither no man might tell. It was the dark hour before dawn and one could actually see nothing of what happened; but within twenty minutes we all marked the eyes of ‘the Bat,’ like twin sparks of fire, upon the roof of the manor house. The machine ascended and became invis- ible to us, whereupon through the night there drifted drearily a strange mutter and a moaning— the lamentation, as it seemed, of that ancient Eliz- abethan pile, shuddering and sinking down under a swift rain of electrons, that transformed the granite at a touch and ground the ancient porphyry into dust. The dirge of sound persisted for five minutes; then all was silent. I knew what my companions would see in the morning and felt for their sorrow before the destruction of their home; but my own thought followed the destroyer and pictured that personality—so human, and imperfect in itself— now translated to be one of the world’s wonders; glorified for its genius and hated for its crimes; rendered egregious, mythic by the manner of its life and death; already perhaps a corpse among the stellar spaces; and lifted for evermore “Be- yond the arrows, shouts and views of men.” This book should | the Library on or before the last date stamped below. - A fine of five cents a day is incurred by retaining it beyond the specified be returned to Please return promptly. \ W. 5:5310 9