Kitobni o'qish: «The Soul Stealer»

CHAPTER I
MR. EUSTACE CHARLIEWOOD, MAN ABOUT TOWN

Upon a brilliant morning in the height of the winter, Mr. Eustace Charliewood walked slowly up Bond Street.

The sun was shining brightly, and there was a keen, invigorating snap in the air which sent the well-dressed people who were beginning to throng the pavements, walking briskly and cheerily.

The great shops of one of the richest thoroughfares in the world were brilliant with luxuries, the tall commissionaires who stood by the heavy glass doors were continually opening them for the entrance of fashionable women.

It was, in short, a typical winter's morning in Bond Street when everything seemed gay, sumptuous and debonair.

Mr. Eustace Charliewood was greeted several times by various friends as he walked slowly up the street. But his manner in reply was rather languid, and his clean-shaven cheeks lacked the colour that the eager air had given to most of the pedestrians.

He was a tall, well-built man, with light close-cropped hair and a large intelligent face. His eyes were light blue in colour, not very direct in expression, and were beginning to be surrounded by the fine wrinkles that middle age and a life of pleasure imprint. The nose was aquiline, the mouth clean cut and rather full.

In age one would have put Mr. Charliewood down as four and forty, in status a man accustomed to move in good society, though probably more frequently the society of the club than that of the drawing-room.

When he was nearly at the mouth of New Bond Street, Mr. Charliewood stopped at a small and expensive-looking hairdresser's and perfumer's, passed through its revolving glass doors and bowed to a stately young lady with wonderfully-arranged coils of shining hair, who sat behind a little glass counter covered with cut-glass bottles of scent and ivory manicure sets.

"Good-morning, Miss Carling," he said easily and in a pleasant voice. "Is Proctor disengaged?"

"Yes, Mr. Charliewood," the girl answered, "he's quite ready for you if you'll go up-stairs."

"Quite well, my dear?" Mr. Charliewood said, with his hand upon the door which led inwards to the toilette saloons.

"Perfectly, thank you, Mr. Charliewood. But you're looking a little seedy this morning."

He made a gesture with his glove which he had just taken off.

"Ah well," he said, "very late last night, Miss Carling. It's the price one has to pay, you know! But Proctor will soon put me right."

"Hope so, I'm sure," she answered, wagging a slim finger at him. "Oh, you men about town!"

He smiled back at her, entered the saloon and mounted some thickly carpeted stairs upon the left.

At the top of the stairs a glass door opened into a little ante-room, furnished with a few arm-chairs and small tables on which Punch and other journals were lying. Beyond, another door stood half open, and at the noise of Mr. Charliewood's entrance a short, clean-shaved, Jewish-looking man came through it and began to help the visitor out of his dark-blue overcoat lined and trimmed with astrachan fur.

Together the two men went into the inner room, where Mr. Charliewood took off his coat and collar and sat down upon a padded chair in front of a marble basin and a long mirror.

He saw himself in the glass, a handsome, tired face, the hair too light to show the greyness at the temples, but hinting at that and growing a little thin upon the top. The whole face, distinguished as it was, bore an impress of weariness and dissipation, the face of a man who lived for material enjoyment, and did so without cessation.

As he looked at his face, bearing undeniable marks of a late sitting the night before, he smiled to think that in an hour or so he would be turned out very different in appearance by the Jewish-looking man in the frock coat who now began to busy himself with certain apparatus.

The up-stairs room at Proctor's toilette club was a select haunt of many young-middle aged men about town. The new American invention known as "Vibro Massage" was in use there, and Proctor reaped a large harvest by "freshening up" gentlemen who were living not wisely but too well, incidentally performing many other services for his clients. The masseur pushed a wheeled pedestal up to the side of the chair, the top of which was a large octagonal box of mahogany. Upon the side were various electric switches, and from the centre of the box a thick silk-covered wire terminated in a gleaming apparatus of vulcanite and steel which the operator held in his hand.

Proctor tucked a towel round his client's neck, rubbed some sweet-smelling cream all over his face and turned a switch in the side of the pedestal.

Immediately an electric motor began to purr inside, like a great cat, and the masseur brought the machine in his right hand, which looked not unlike a telephone receiver, down upon the skin of the subject's face.

What was happening was just this. A little vulcanite hammer at the end of the machine was vibrating some six thousand times a minute and pounding and kneading the flesh, so swiftly and silently that Charliewood felt nothing more than a faint thrill as the hammer was guided skilfully over the pouches beneath the eyes, and beat out the flabbiness from the cheeks.

After some five minutes, Proctor switched off the motor and began to screw a larger and differently-shaped vulcanite instrument to the end of the hand apparatus.

Mr. Charliewood lay back, in a moment of intense physical ease. By means of the electrodes the recruiting force had vibrated gently through the nerves. New animation had come into the blood and tissues of the tired face, and already that sensation of youthful buoyancy, which is the surest indication of good health, was returning to his dissipated mask.

"Now then, sir," said Proctor, "I've screwed on a saddle-shaped electrode, and I'll go up and down the spine, if you please; kindly stand up."

Once more the motor hummed, and Mr. Charliewood felt an indescribable thrill of pleasure as the operator applied straight and angular strokes of the rapidly vibrating instrument up and down his broad back, impinging upon the central nerve system of the body and filling him with vigour.

"By Jove, Proctor," he said, when the operation was over at last, and the man was brushing his hair and spraying bay rum upon his face – "by Jove, this is one of the best things I've ever struck! In the old days one had to have a small bottle of Pol Roger about half-past eleven if one had been sitting up late at cards the night before. Beastly bad for the liver it was. But I never come out of this room without feeling absolutely fit."

"Ah, sir," said Mr. Proctor, "it's astonishing what the treatment can do, and it's astonishing what a lot of gentlemen come to me every day at all hours. My appointment book is simply filled, sir, filled! And no gentleman need be afraid now of doing exactly as he likes, till what hour he likes, as long as he is prepared to come to me to put him right in the morning."

After making an appointment for two days ahead, Mr. Charliewood passed out into the ante-room once more. During the time while he had been massaged another client had entered and was waiting there, lounging upon a sofa and smoking a cigarette.

He was a tall, youngish looking man, of about the same height and build as Mr. Charliewood, clean-shaved, and with dark red hair. He looked up languidly as Proctor helped Charliewood into his fur coat. The first arrival hardly noticed him, but bade the masseur a good-day, and went out jauntily into Bond Street with a nod and a smile for the pretty girl who sat behind the counter of the shop.

It was a different person who walked down Bond Street towards Piccadilly – a Mr. Charliewood who looked younger in some indefinite way, who walked with sprightliness, and over whose lips played a slight and satisfied smile.

It was not far down Bond Street – now more bright and animated than ever – to Mr. Charliewood's club in St. James's Street, a small but well-known establishment which had the reputation of being more select than it really was.

Swinging his neatly-rolled umbrella and humming a tune to himself under his breath, he ran up the steps and entered. A waiter helped him off with his overcoat, and he turned into the smoking-room to look at the letters which the porter had handed him, and to get himself in a right frame of mind for the important function of lunch.

In a minute or two, with a sherry and bitters by his side and a Parascho cigarette between his lips he seemed the personification of correctness, good-humour, and mild enjoyment.

Very little was known about Eustace Charliewood outside his social life. He lived in Chambers in Jermyn Street, but few people were ever invited there, and it was obvious that he must use what was actually his home as very little more than a place in which to sleep and to take breakfast. He was of good family, there was no doubt about that, being a member of the Norfolk Charliewoods, and a second son of old Sir Miles Charliewood, of King's Lynn. Some people said that Eustace Charliewood was not received by his family; there had been some quarrel many years before. This rumour gained general belief, as Charliewood never seemed to be asked to go down to his father's place for the shooting, or, indeed, upon any occasion whatever. There was nothing against Eustace Charliewood. Nobody could associate his name with any unpleasant scandal, or point out to him as being in any way worse than half a hundred men of his own position and way of life. Yet he was not very generally popular – people just liked him, said "Oh, Eustace Charliewood isn't half a bad sort!" and left it at that. Perhaps a certain mystery about him and about his sources of income annoyed those people who would like to see their neighbour's bank-book once a week.

Charliewood lived fairly well, and everybody said, "How on earth does he manage it?" the general opinion being that his father and elder brother paid him an allowance to keep him outside the life of the family.

About one o'clock Mr. Charliewood went into the club dining-room. The head waiter hurried up to him, and there was a somewhat protracted and extremely confidential conversation as to the important question of lunch. As the waiter would often remark to his underlings, "It's always a pleasure to do for a gentleman like Mr. Charliewood, because he gives real thought to his meals, chooses his wine with care and his food with discrimination, not like them young men we get up from Hoxford and Cambridge, who'll eat anything you put before 'em, and smacks their lips knowing over a corked bottle of wine."

"Very well," Mr. Charliewood said, "Robert, the clear soup, a portion of the sole with mushrooms, a grilled kidney and a morsel of Camembert. That will do very well. A half bottle of the '82 Neirsteiner and a Grand Marnier with my coffee."

Having decided this important question, Mr. Charliewood looked round the room to see if any of his particular friends were there. He caught the eye of a tall, young-looking man with a silly face and very carefully dressed. This was young Lord Landsend, a peer of twenty-one summers, who had recently been elected to the Baobab Tree Club, and who had a profound admiration for the worldly wisdom of his fellow member.

The young man got up from his table and came over to Mr. Charliewood.

"I say, Charlie," he said, "I'm going to motor down to Richmond this afternoon, just to get an appetite for dinner; will you come?"

Charliewood was about to agree, when a waiter brought him a telegram upon a silver tray. He opened it, read it, crushed the flimsy pink Government paper in his hand and said —

"Awfully sorry, Landsend, but I've just had a wire making an appointment which I must keep."

He smiled as he did so.

"Ah," said the young gentleman, with a giggle, prodding his friend in the shoulder with a thin, unsteady finger. "Ah, naughty, naughty!"

With that he returned to his place, and Mr. Charliewood lunched alone.

Once he smoothed out the telegram again, and read it with a slight frown and an anxious expression in his eyes. It ran as follows —

Be here three this afternoon without fail.

Gouldesbrough.

When Mr. Charliewood had paid his bill and left the dining-room, the head waiter remarked with a sigh and a shake of the head that his pet member did not seem to enjoy his food to-day. "Which is odd, Thomas," concluded that oracle, "because a finer sole-oh-von-blong I never see served in the Club."

Charliewood got into a cab, gave the driver the name and address of a house in Regent's Park, lit a cigar and sat back in deep thought. He smoked rather rapidly, seeing nothing of the moving panorama of the streets through which the gondola of London bore him swiftly and noiselessly. His face wore a sullen and rather troubled expression, not at all the expression one would have imagined likely in a man who had been summoned to pay an afternoon call upon so famous and popular a celebrity as Sir William Gouldesbrough, F.R.S.

There are some people who are eminent in science, literature, or art, and whose eminence is only appreciated by a small number of learned people and stamped by an almost unregarded official approbation. These are the people who, however good their services may be, are never in any sense popular names, until many years after they are dead and their labours for humanity have passed into history and so become recognized by the crowd. But there are other celebrities who are popular and known to the "Man in the street." Sir William Gouldesbrough belonged to the latter class. Everybody knew the name of the famous scientist. His picture was constantly in the papers. His name was a household word, and with all his arduous and successful scientific work, he still found time to be a frequent figure in society, and a man without whom no large social function, whether public or private, was considered to be complete. He was the sort of person, in short, of whom one read in the newspapers – "and among the other distinguished guests were Sir Henry Irving, Sir Alma Tadema, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, and Sir William Gouldesbrough."

He had caught the popular attention by the fact that he was still a comparatively young man of five and forty. He had caught the ear and attention of the scientific world by his extraordinary researches into the lesser known powers of electric currents. Moreover, and it is an unusual combination, he was not only an investigator of the lesser known attributes of electricity who could be ranked with Tessler, Edison, or Marconi, but he was a psychologist and pathologist of European reputation. He was said by those who knew to have probed more deeply into mental processes than almost any man of his time, and for two or three years now every one who was on the inside track of things knew that Sir William Gouldesbrough was on the verge of some stupendous discovery which was to astonish the world as nothing else had astonished it in modern years.

Eustace Charliewood appeared to be an intimate friend of this great man. He was often at his house, they were frequently seen together, and the reason for this strange combination was always a fruitful subject of gossip.

Serious people could not understand what Gouldesbrough saw in a mere pleasant-mannered and idle clubman, of no particular distinction or importance. Frivolous society people could not understand how Mr. Charliewood cared to spend his time with a man who took life seriously and was always bothering about stupid electricity, while in the same breath they rather admired Charliewood for being intimate with such a very important person in England as Sir William Gouldesbrough undoubtedly was.

For two or three years now this curious friendship had been a piquant subject of discussion, and both Sir William's and Mr. Charliewood's most intimate friends had spent many pleasant hours in inventing this or that base and disgraceful reason for such a combination.

Yet as the cab rolled smoothly up Portland Place Mr. Charliewood did not look happy. He threw his cigar away with a petulant gesture, and watched a street arab dive for it among the traffic with a sneer of disgust.

He unbuttoned his heavy astrachan coat; it felt tight across his chest, and he realized that his nerves were still unstrung, despite the efforts of the morning. Then he took a cheque-book from his pocket and turned over the counterfoils till he came to the last balance. He frowned again, put it away, and once more leant back with a sigh of resignation.

In a few more minutes the cab drew up at a brick wall which encircled a large house of red brick, a house built in the Georgian period.

Only the top of the place could be seen from the street, as the wall was somewhat unusually high, while the only means of entrance was a green door let into the brickwork, with a brass bell-pull at one side.

In a moment or two the door opened to Charliewood's ring, and a man-servant of the discreet and ordinary type stood there waiting.

"Good afternoon, sir," he said. "Sir William expects you."

Charliewood entered and walked along a wide gravel path towards the portico of the house, chatting casually to the butler as he went.

It could now be seen that Sir William Gouldesbrough's residence was a typical mansion of George the First's reign. The brick was mellowed to a pleasant autumnal tint, the windows, with their white frames and small panes, were set in mathematical lines down the façade, a flight of stone steps led up to the square pillared porch, on each side of which a clumsy stone lion with a distinctly German expression was crouching. The heavy panelled door was open, and together the guest and the butler passed into the hall.

It was a large place with a tesselated floor and high white painted doors all round. Two or three great bronze urns stood upon marble pedestals. There was a big leather couch of a heavy and old-fashioned pattern, and a stuffed bear standing on its hind legs, some eight feet high, and with a balancing pole in its paws, formed a hat rack.

The hall was lit from a square domed sky-light in the roof, which showed that it was surrounded by a gallery, up to which led a broad flight of stairs with carved balustrades.

The whole place indeed was old-fashioned and sombre. After the coziness of the smart little club in St. James's Street, and the brightness and glitter of the centre of the West End of town, Charliewood felt, as indeed he always did, a sense of dislike and depression.

It was all so heavy, massive, ugly, and old-fashioned. One expected to see grim and sober gentlemen in knee-breeches and powdered hair coming silently out of this or that ponderous doorway – lean, respectable and uncomfortable ghosts of a period now vanished for ever.

"Will you go straight on to the study, sir?" the butler said. "Sir William expects you."

Charliewood did not take off his coat, as if he thought that the interview to which he was summoned need not be unduly prolonged. But with his hat and umbrella in his hand he crossed the hall to its farthest left angle beyond the projecting staircase, and opened a green baize door.

He found himself in a short passage heavily carpeted, at the end of which was another door. This he opened and came at once into Sir William Gouldesbrough's study.

Directly he entered, he saw that his friend was sitting in an arm-chair by the side of a large writing-table.

Something unfamiliar in his host's attitude, and the chair in which he was sitting, struck him at once.

He looked again and saw that the chair was slightly raised from the ground upon a low daïs, and was of peculiar construction.

In a moment more he started with surprise to see that there was something extremely odd about Sir William's head.

A gleam of sunlight was pouring into the room through a long window which opened on to the lawn at the back of the house. It fell full upon the upper portion of the scientist's body, and with a muffled expression of surprise, Mr. Charliewood saw that Sir William was wearing a sort of helmet, a curved shining head-dress of brass, like the cup of an acorn, from the top of which a thick black cord rose upwards to a china plug set in the wall not far away.

"Good heavens, Gouldesbrough!" he said in uncontrollable surprise, "what – "

As he spoke Sir William turned and held up one hand, motioning him to silence.

The handsome and intellectual face that was so well known to the public was fixed and set into attention, and did not relax or change at Charliewood's ejaculation.

The warning hand remained held up, and that was all.

Charliewood stood frozen to the floor in wonder and uneasiness, utterly at a loss to understand what was going on. The tremor of his nerves began again, his whole body felt like a pincushion into which innumerable pins were being pushed.

Then, with extreme suddenness, he experienced another shock.

Somewhere in the room, quite close to him, an electric bell, like the sudden alarm of a clock on a dark dawn, whirred a shrill summons.

The big man jumped where he stood.

At the unexpected rattle of the bell, Sir William put his hand up to his head, touched something that clicked, and lifted the heavy metal cap from it. He placed it carefully down upon the writing-table, passed his hand over his face for a moment with a tired gesture, and then turned to his guest.

"How do you do?" he said. "Glad to see you, Charliewood."