The Soul Stealer

Closing the door again and passing onward, Sir William entered the chemical laboratory, a long, low place, lit by a sky-light in day, and by electricity at night. As he opened the door quietly, he heard sounds of movement. And then immediately, at the far end of the laboratory, he saw the man he was looking for.

The place was in entire darkness save at one end, where two incandescent bulbs glowed above an experiment table.

The assistant was bending over a Bunsen burner above which a large glass tube was clamped, in which some liquid was boiling.

Suddenly he heard Sir William's advancing footsteps, and leapt up. For a single moment the grey-pink hairless face was suffused with furtive terror at the sound. It shone out in the light of the lamps clear and distinct, though the lower part of the body was hidden by the darkness.

"Here you are then," Gouldesbrough said. "The whole house seems deserted."

Guest sighed with relief, and then began to titter in his curious, almost feminine, way —

"By Jove!" he said, "you startled me, William. I had no idea when you'd be back. My nerves are like lumps of wet velvet. He! he!"

His hand shook as he came forward to greet his chief. Sir William knew well that this man was a consistent and secret drunkard, and he never made any comment on the fact. Guest was at liberty to do exactly as he pleased, to gratify his vices to the full – because Guest, drunk or sober, was a complete and brilliant helper, and because Sir William not only could not do without him, but knew that the man was his, body and mind, so long as he was allowed to indulge himself as he would. Yet, as the greater man shook hands with the lesser, he was conscious of a sudden thrill of repulsion at the filthy fears of the sensualist.

"Yes, I'm back," Gouldesbrough answered, "and everything has gone very well. I suppose you have seen that Eustace Charliewood killed himself?"

"Yes, I did," Guest answered, "and for a few hours I was considerably troubled about it. Then I saw by the paper that you were down there, so I knew it would be all right. He never said anything, of course, or left anything behind him?"

"Only a letter to me, which I destroyed."

"Good," Guest answered, and his interest in Eustace Charliewood and his end ceased immediately. "Well, I've lots to tell you. I've gone as far as I could on my own lines, but I've been longing for you to come back. My dear William, it's simply splendid! How right you have been always! How absolutely necessary it was to have a living brain to experiment on!"

"How is the man, in good health?"

"Well, of course there's been a considerable waste of tissue, and the absolute lack of exercise has had its effect. But the cell is well ventilated with an electric fan which I keep constantly going, and I allow the subject to read two or three hours every day – such books as he may ask for. The rest of the time I turn out the light, after I have fixed on the cap. I find that the thought images thrown upon the screen in room "D" are more vivid when the subject is kept in darkness. Still, speaking as a whole, the physical health is good, and it's singular how vivid the thought pictures are, which shows that the cerebrum is in a perfectly strong and healthy condition. As you know, it is from that part of the brain we get all our voluntary and actual pictures; therefore, we are to be congratulated that there is no weakness in that regard so far. Still, when you came in, I was just preparing a phosphate solution which I'm going to mix with the subject's soup, which he will take in an hour or so. Three or four days' phosphate treatment will intensify the vibrations within the magnetic field of the cap. I was doing this in view of your return, when we shall really begin to experiment seriously."

"Have you had any trouble, physical trouble I mean, with the subject?" Gouldesbrough asked.

"Oh, no," Guest replied indifferently. "Of course he's as strong as a horse, but the aluminium fetters and the system of india-rubber cord that you suggested, have proved all that was necessary. I can render him quite helpless directly I get inside the cell and before he could possibly reach me. Then fitting the cap is a simple matter. The head is rigid in the vulcanite depression which encloses the neck, and there is no resistance at all."

"Good," Gouldesbrough answered. "Curiously enough, I found that design in a strange old book published at the time of the Reformation, detailing some of the methods of the Holy Office in Spain, with appropriate wood cuts."

Guest chuckled horribly.

"Of course as yet," Gouldesbrough went on in calm, even tones, "the subject has not the slightest idea what the experiments mean? He doesn't know why you fit on the receiver? He is quite in the dark?"

"Entirely," Guest answered, "and he is at a loss to imagine what we are doing to him."

"Ah, well," Gouldesbrough replied, "when we do tell him – "

"It will be lovely," the assistant replied, tittering once more, "to watch the pictures that come on the screen when he knows that we are reading his inmost thoughts when he tries to control them, to alter them, and fails in his agony! When he realizes that he doesn't belong to himself any more!"

The creature rubbed its plump and delicate hands together in an ecstasy of evil enjoyment.

"I suppose," Gouldesbrough said with some slight hesitation, "you've gathered a good deal of the fellow's opinions, memories, etc., lately?"

"Never had such an amusing time in all my life," Guest answered. "I've gone down and put on the cap and tied him up, and I've come up and sat alone in front of the screen in Room "D," turned on the generating current and sat in an arm-chair with a bottle of whisky at my side, and laughed till I cried! You'll learn a few home truths about yourself, William, before very long. The curious thing is, that whenever your picture comes upon the screen, it's all distorted. You are a fairly passable-looking man, as men go, William, but you should see yourself as this man sees you in his brain."

He laughed once more, malicious and horrible laughter which echoed high up in the sky-light of this weird and empty place.

Gouldesbrough made an impatient movement.

"How do you mean?" he said.

"Well," Guest answered, intensely enjoying the situation, "I've seen a good many pictures of nasty ugly looking devils and monsters, and I've been in the Weirtz Museum at Brussels, but no artist who ever painted or drew, and no man who ever modelled in wax, ever made such a face as this man's brain makes of you, when he thinks of you!"

Gouldesbrough laughed grimly.

"Poor devil," he said indifferently, "he naturally would. But I'm glad we have got such an excellent brain for experiment. The Pons Varolii must be exceptionally active."

"I should think it was," Guest answered. "You should see the pictures that come on the screen when he is thinking of Marjorie Poole!"

Gouldesbrough started.

"How do you mean?" he said.

"Well," Guest replied, turning off the blue flame of the Bunsen burner, and stirring the mixture in the test-tube with a glass rod – "well, Marjorie Poole's a pretty girl, but when this man calls her up in his memory, she's a sort of angel. You know what a difficulty we had when we got over the Lithium lines in the ash of the muscular tissue of the blood, which had to be translated through the new spectroscope into actual colour upon the screen? Well, we did get over it, but when the subject thinks of Marjorie Poole, the colour all fades out of the picture, the actual primary colours, I mean. The girl flashes out into the dark in white light, like a sort of angel! and the first time I saw it I jumped up from my chair, shut off the connecting switch and turned up the lamps. It was so unlike any of the other pictures we have ever got, and for a moment I thought I had been over-doing it a little in the whisky line."

Gouldesbrough stopped the strange inhuman creature in his unholy amusement.

"Well, I'm going to bed now," he said. "We'll begin work to-morrow. I saw some supper put out for me in the study."

"Right oh," Guest answered. "Good-night then, William. I'm going to take the beef broth and phosphates to our Brain down below in the cell."

CHAPTER XII

THE TOMB-BOUND MAN

Mr. Guest had visited his victim and had gone.

Supper was over. Beef-tea and phosphorous! and Mr. Guest had said his mocking words of good-night.

"Sleep well, Mr. Rathbone! I shall not be compelled to ask you to wear that pretty metal cap until to-morrow, so I won't turn out the light. You have a book to read, you've had your supper, and I wish you a pleasant time alone. No doubt you will occupy your leisure in thinking of Miss Marjorie Poole. You'll recall that occasion in a certain room hung with pink, when you kissed her by the side of the piano in the white and gold case! I know you often recall that happy incident."

He had closed the heavy steel door with a last chuckle of malice and power, leaving the prisoner white and shaking with fear. How did this sinister and devilish gaoler know his intimate thoughts?

He groaned deeply, and then, as he had done a thousand times before, gazed round the place in which he was in terror-struck amazement. Where was he? What was this horrible prison with all its strange contrivances, its inexplicable mysteries?

He was in a large stone cell, brilliantly lit at this moment by two incandescent electric bulbs in the vaulted ceiling far above his head. A long time ago now, how long he could not have said, he was Gerald Rathbone, a man living in the world, seeing the sunlight and breathing the air of day. He had been Gerald Rathbone, moving honourably among his fellow men, seeing human faces, hearing the music of human voices, an accepted lover, and a happy man.

That was long ago, a dream, a vision which was fading away. It seemed years since he had heard any voice but that of the pink, hairless man who fed him and whose slave he had become.

Once more the prisoned thing that had been Gerald Rathbone gazed round the cell, striving with terrible intensity of thought to understand it and penetrate its mysteries. Here he had been put and here he had remained ever since that sickening moment when he had been talking to Sir William Gouldesbrough. He had been standing in front of the baronet, when his arms had been gripped from behind and unseen fingers held a damp cloth, with a faint sickly and aromatic smell, over his face. A noise like the rushing of great waters sounded in his ears, there was a sense of falling into a gulf of enveloping blackness.

He had awakened in the place which he was now surveying again, with frightful and fascinated curiosity.

In the brilliant light of the electric bulbs every object in the cell was clearly seen. The place was not small. It was oblong in shape, some sixteen feet by twelve. The walls were built of heavy slabs of Portland stone cemented together with extreme nicety and care. The door of the cell was obviously new. It was a heavy steel door with a complicated system of locks – very much like the door of a safe. The whole place, indeed, suggested that it had been used as a strong-room at some time or other. There was no window of any kind in the cell. In the centre of the arched roof there was a barred ventilator, and close by an electric fan whirled and whispered unceasingly. The sound made by the purring thing as it revolved two thousand times a minute was almost the only sound Gerald Rathbone heard now.