The Soul Stealer

Various other scientists from France, Germany and America were present. Donald Megbie, the editor of the Eastminster Gazette, and a famous novelist represented the press and the literary world.

The Bishop of West London, frail, alert, his grey eyes filled with eagerness, was one of the guests. Dean Weare came with him, and the political world had sent three ambassadors in the persons of Mr. Decies, the Home Secretary, Sir James Clouston and Sir William Ellrington. There was an academician who looked like a jockey, and a judge who looked like a trainer. The rest of the guests were all well-known people, who, if they were not particularly interested in science, were yet just the people who could not be ignored on an important occasion. That is to say, they belonged to that little coterie of men and women in London who have no other metier than to be present at functions of extreme importance! For no particular reason they have become fixtures, and their personalities are entirely merged in the unearned celebrity of their name and the apparent necessity for their presence.

The men in their black frock coats passed over the great galleried hall like ghosts, and the white furs of the ladies, and the grey plumes and feathers of their hats, did little to relieve the general note of sadness, or to bring any colour into Sir William Gouldesbrough's house. Among the last arrivals of all were Lady Poole and her daughter.

The guests had congregated in the hall where servants were handing about tea, and where two great fires warmed the air indeed, but could not destroy the sense of mental chill.

Sir William had not yet made his appearance, and it was understood that when the party was complete the butler was to lead them straight to the laboratories. The fact marked the seriousness of the occasion.

This was no social party, no scientific picnic, at which one went to see things which would interest and amuse, and to chatter, just as one chatters at an exhibition of water-colours in Pall Mall. Everybody felt this, everybody knew it, and everybody experienced a sense of awe and gravity as befitted people who were about to witness something which would mark an epoch in the history of the world and change the whole course of human life.

As Marjorie Poole came into the hall with her mother, every one saw that she looked ill. Her face was pale, there were dark rings under her eyes; and, as she stepped over the threshold of the door, one or two people noticed that she shivered. It was remarked also, that directly the two ladies entered, Lord Malvin, Sir Harold Oliver, and Mr. Megbie went up to them in a marked manner, and seemed to constitute themselves as a sort of bodyguard for the rest of the stay in the hall.

"She does not look much like a girl who is engaged to the most successful man of the day, does she?" Mrs. Hoskin-Heath said to Lord Landsend.

"No, you are right," Lord Landsend whispered. "She is afraid Sir William's machine won't work, and that the whole thing won't come off, don't you know. And, for my part, though I don't profess to understand exactly what Sir William is going to show us, I bet a fiver that it is not more wonderful than things I have seen scores of times at Maskelyne and Cook's. Wonderful place that, Mrs. Hoskin-Heath. I often go there on a dull afternoon; it makes one's flesh creep, 'pon my word it does. I have been there about fifty times, and I have never yet felt safe from the disappearing egg."

The butler was seen to come up to Lord Malvin and ask him a question. The peer looked round, and seemed to see that every one was prepared to move. He nodded to the man, who crossed the hall, bowed, and opened a door to the right of the great central staircase.

"My master tells me to say, my lord," he said, addressing Lord Malvin, but including the whole of the company in his gaze – "my master tells me to say that he will be very much obliged if you will come into the laboratory."

A footman went up to the door and held it open, while the butler, with a backward look, disappeared into the passage, and led the way towards the real scene of the afternoon's events.

As that throng of famous people walked down the long corridor, which led past the study door, not a single one of them knew or could surmise that all and severally they were about to experience the emotion of their lives.

CHAPTER XXII

THE DOOM BEGINS

The visitors found themselves in the laboratory, a large building lit by means of its glass roof.

Sir William Gouldesbrough, dressed in a grey morning suit, received them. He shook hands with one or two, and bowed to the rest; but there was no regular greeting of each person who came in.

At one side of the laboratory were three long rows of arm-chairs, built up in three tiers on platforms, much in the same way as the seats are arranged for hospital students in an operating theatre.

The guests were invited to take their places, and in a minute or two had settled themselves, the more frivolous and non-scientific part of them whispering and laughing together, as people do before the curtain rises at a play. This is what they saw.

About two yards away from the lowest row of seats, which was practically on the floor level, the actual apparatus of the discovery began. Upon specially constructed tables, on steel supports, which rose through the boarding of the floor, were a series of machines standing almost the whole length of the room.

Upon the opposite wall to the spectators was a large screen, upon which the Thought Pictures were to be thrown.

Save for the strange apparatus in all its intricacy of brass and vulcanite, coiled wire and glass, there was more than a suggestion of the school-room in which the pupils are entertained by a magic-lantern exhibition.

Marjorie Poole and her mother sat next to Lord Malvin, on either side of him, while Donald Megbie, Sir Harold Oliver, and the Bishop of West London were immediately to their right and left.

Gouldesbrough had not formally greeted Marjorie, but as he stood behind his apparatus ready to begin the demonstration, he flashed one bright look at her full of triumph and exultation. Megbie, who was watching very closely, saw that the girl's face did not change or soften, even at this supreme moment, when the unutterable triumph of the man who loved her was about to be demonstrated to the world.

Amid a scene of considerable excitement on the part of the non-scientific of the audience, and the strained tense attention of the famous scientists, Sir William Gouldesbrough began.

"My Lord, my illustrious confrères, ladies and gentlemen, I have to thank you very much for all coming here this afternoon to see the law which I have discovered actually applied by means of mechanical processes, which have been adapted, invented and made by myself and my brilliant partner and helper, Mr. Wilson Guest."

As he said this, Sir William turned towards the end of the room where his assistant was busy bending over one of the machines.

The man, with the large hairless face, was pale, and his fingers were shaking, as they moved about among the screws and wires. He did not look up as Gouldesbrough paid him this just tribute, though every one of the spectators turned towards him at the mention of his name.

Truth to tell, Mr. Wilson Guest was, for the first time for many years, absolutely bereft of all alcoholic liquor since the night before. For the first time in their partnership Gouldesbrough had insisted upon Guest's absolute abstention. He had never done such a thing before, as he pointed out to his friend, but on this day he said his decision was final and he meant to be obeyed.

The frenzied entreaties of the poor wretch about mid-day, his miserable abasement and self-surrender, as he wept for his poison, were useless alike. He had been forced to yield, and at this moment he was suffering something like torture. It was indeed only by the greatest effort of his weakened will that he could attend to the mechanical duties of adjusting the sensitive machines for the demonstration which was to follow.

"I cannot suppose that any of you here are now unaware of the nature of my experiments and discovery. It has been ventilated in the press so largely during the last few days, and Mr. Donald Megbie has written such a lucid account of the influence which he believes the discovery will have upon modern life, that I am sure you all realize something of the nature of what I am about to show you.

"To put it very plainly, I am going to show you how thought can be collected in the form of vibrations, in the form of fluid electric current, and collected directly from the brain of the thinker as he thinks.

"I am further going to demonstrate to you how this current can be transformed into a visible, living and actual representation of the thoughts of the thinker."

He stopped for a moment, and there was a little murmur from his guests. Then he went on.

"Before proceeding to actual experiment, it is necessary that I should give you some account of the means by which I have achieved such marvellous results. I do not propose to do this in extremely technical language, for were I to do so, a large portion of those here this afternoon would not be able to follow me. I shall proceed to explain in words, which I think most of you will understand.

"My illustrious confrères in Science will follow me and understand the technical aspect of what I am going to put into very plain language, and to them especially I would say that, after the actual experiment has been conducted, I shall beg them to examine my apparatus and to go into the matter with me from a purely scientific aspect.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin.

"That light is transmitted by waves in the ether is abundantly proved, but the nature of the waves and the nature of the ether have, until the present, always been uncertain. It is known that the ultimate particles of bodies exist in a state of vibration, but it cannot be assumed that the vibration is purely mechanical. Experiment has proved the existence of magnetic and electric strains in the ether, and I have found that electro-magnetic strains are propagated with the same speed as that of which light travels.

"You will now realize, to put it in very simple language, that the connection between light and what the man in the street would call currents, or waves of electricity, is very intimate. When I had fully established this in my own mind, I studied the physiology of the human body for a long period. I found that the exciting agents in the nerve system of the animal frame are frequently electric, and by experimenting upon the nerve system in the human eye, I found that it could be excited by the reception of electro-magnetic waves.

"In the course of my experiments I began more and more frequently to ask myself, 'What is the exact nature of thought?'

"You all know how Signor Marconi can send out waves from one of his transmitters. I am now about to tell you that the human brain is nothing more nor less than an organism, which, in the process of thought, sends out into the surrounding ether a number of subtle vibrations. But, as these vibrations are so akin in their very essence to the nature of light, it occurred to me that it might be possible to gather them together as they were given off, to direct them to a certain point, and then, by means of transforming them into actual light, pass that light through a new form of spectroscope; and, instead of coloured rays being projected upon a screen through the prism of the instrument, the actual living thought of the brain would appear for every one to see.

"This is, in brief, precisely what I have done, and it is precisely what I am going to show you in a few minutes. Having given you this briefest and slightest outline of the law I have discovered and proved, I will explain to you something of the mechanical means by which I have proved it, and by which I am going to show it to you in operation."

He stopped once more, and moved a little away from where he had been standing. Every one was now thoroughly interested. There was a tremulous silence as the tall, lean figure moved towards a small table on which the shining conical cap, or helmet of brass, lay.

Sir William took up the object and held it in his right hand, so that every one could see it distinctly. From the top, where the button of an ordinary cap would be, a thin silk-covered wire drooped down to the floor and finally rose again and disappeared within a complicated piece of mechanism a few feet away.

"This cap," Sir William said, "is placed upon the head of a human being. You will observe later that it covers the whole of the upper part of the head down to the eyes, and also descends behind to the nape of the neck and along each side of the neck to the ears.

"A person wearing this cap is quite unconscious of anything more than the mere fact of its weight upon his head. But what is actually going on is, that every single thought he secretes is giving off this vibration, not into the ether, but within the space enclosed by the cap. These vibrations cannot penetrate through the substance with which the cap is lined, and in order to obtain an outlet, they can only use the outlet which I have prepared for them. This is placed in the top of the cap, and is something like those extremely delicate membranes which receive the vibrations of the human voice in a telephone and transmit them along a wire to the receiver at the other end of it."

He put down the cap, and looked towards his audience. Not a single person moved in the very least. The distinguished party, tier upon tier, might have been a group of wooden statues painted and coloured to resemble the human form. Sir William moved on.

"Here," he said, "is a piece of apparatus enclosed in this box, which presented the first great difficulty in the course of the twenty years during which I have been engaged upon this work. Within this wooden shell," he tapped it with his fingers, "the thought vibrations, if I may call them so, are collected and transformed into definite and separate electric currents. Every single variation in their strength or quality is changed into a corresponding electric current, which, in its turn, varies from its fellow currents. So far, I have found that from between 3,000 to 4,000 different currents, differing in their tensity and their power, are generated by the ordinary thoughts of the ordinary human being.

"You may take it from me, as I shall presently show my scientific brethren, that within this box Thought Vibrations are transformed into electric currents."

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