The Soul Stealer

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."

CHAPTER II

UNEXPECTED ENTRANCE OF TWO LADIES

For a moment or two Eustace Charliewood did not return his host's greeting. He was not only surprised by the curious proceeding of which he had been a witness, but he felt a certain chill also.

"What the deuce are you up to now, Gouldesbrough?" he said in an uneasy voice. "Another of your beastly experiments? I wish you wouldn't startle a fellow in this way."

Sir William looked keenly at the big man whose face had become curiously pallid.

There was a tremendous contrast in the two people in the room. Gouldesbrough was a very handsome man, as handsome as Charliewood himself had been in younger days, but it was with an entirely different beauty. His face was clean shaved, also, but it was dark, clear-cut and ascetic. The eyes were dark blue, singularly bright and direct in glance, and shaded by heavy brows. The whole face and poise of the tall lean body spoke of power, knowledge, and resolution.

One man was of the earth, earthy; the other seemed far removed from sensual and material things. Yet, perhaps, a deep student of character, and one who had gone far into the hidden springs of action within the human soul, would have preferred the weak, easy-going sensualist, with all his meannesses and viciousness, to the hard and agate intellect, the indomitable and lawless will that sometimes shone out upon the face of the scientist like a lit lamp.