The Soul Stealer

In a minute or two the butler returned, and handed a formidable implement with a wedge-shaped iron head on a long ash shank to Lord Malvin.

The Home Secretary stood by, and the great men of science clustered round him, watching Lord Malvin's actions.

The peer went to the silent, soulless machines, which had been the medium through which such wonder and terror had passed, and raising the hammer about his head, he destroyed each one severally, with a sort of ritual, as some priest carries out the ritual of his Faith.

This old man, whose name and personality stood so high, so supreme indeed, in the modern world, was like some ancient prophet of the Lord, who, fired with holy zeal, strode down the pagan avenues of the ancient world and tore and beat the false idols from their pedestals in the frenzy of one who kills and destroys that truth may enter and the world be calm.

It was done, over. The politician shook hands with Lord Malvin, and resumed his dry, official manner, perhaps a little ashamed or frightened at the emotion which he had exhibited.

"Good-bye, Lord Malvin," he said. "This terrible business is now over. I have to return to the palace to tell His Majesty that this – this devilish invention is destroyed. Good-night, good-night."

Then a tall man with a pointed beard came into the laboratory, saluting the Home Secretary as he was leaving, with several of the other scientists who had witnessed the whole thing from first to last and now felt that they must go home.

The man with the beard was the man who had been sent from Scotland Yard.

He walked up to Lord Malvin and saluted.

"I think, my Lord," he said, "that everything requisite has now been done. I have all the servants in my charge, and we have fifteen or twenty men in the house, seeing that nothing is disturbed until official inquiry is due."

By this time nobody was left in the laboratory but the detective inspector, Lord Malvin, and Herr Schmoulder.

"Oh! and there is one other thing, my Lord, I have to ask you. Mr. Donald Megbie, the writing gentleman is here, and begs that he may be allowed to see you. Should I be right in admitting the gentleman?"

"Certainly, certainly," Lord Malvin replied. "Bring him in at once, please inspector."

In less than a minute a plain-clothes policeman ushered Donald Megbie into the laboratory.

He went up to Lord Malvin, and his face was bright and happy.

"It is all right, my Lord," he said, "Rathbone is recovering swiftly. Miss Poole is with him, and the doctors say, that though they feared for a short time that his reason would go, they are now quite satisfied that he will recover. He is sleeping quietly in a private room at Marylebone Hospital, and Marjorie Poole is sitting by his side holding his hand."

Then Megbie looked at the wreck upon the floor.

"Ah!" he said, "so you have destroyed this horrid thing?"

"Yes," Lord Malvin answered; "I discussed it with Decies, and Decies went to see the King. It was thought to be better and wiser for the safety of the commonwealth – for the safety of the world indeed – that Sir William Gouldesbrough's discovery should perish with Sir William Gouldesbrough."

"Ah!" Donald Megbie answered; "I felt sure that that was the best course. It would have been too terrible, too subversive. The world must go on as it has always gone on. I have thought, during the last few hours, that Sir William Gouldesbrough was not himself at all. Is it not possible that he himself might have died long ago, and that something was inhabiting his body, something which came out of the darkness behind the Veil?"

"That, Mr. Megbie," said Lord Malvin, "is the picturesque thought of the literary man. Science does not allow the possibility of such sinister interferences. And now, I am going home. You will realize, of course, that your supreme services in this matter will be recognized, though I fear that the recognition can never be acknowledged publicly."

Donald Megbie bowed.

"My Lord," he said, "they have been recognized already, because I have seen how love has called back a soul into life. I have seen Marjorie Poole sitting by the bedside of Guy Rathbone. And, do you know, Lord Malvin," he continued in a less exalted tone, "I never wish to see anything in my life here more utterly beautiful than that."

"Come," said Lord Malvin, "it is very late; we are all tired and unstrung."

The two men, arm in arm, the young writer and the great man, moved towards the door of the laboratory.

The detective inspector stood watching the scene with quiet and observant eyes.

But Herr Schmoulder surveyed the wreckage of the Thought-Spectroscope, and as he turned at length to follow Lord Malvin and Donald Megbie, he heaved a deep Teutonic sigh.

"It was der most wonderful triumph that ever der unknown forces occurred has been," he muttered.

Then the three men crossed the vast, sombre hall, now filled with frightened servants and the stiff official guardians of the law, and went out through the path among the laurel bushes to the gate in the wall, where their carriages were waiting.

And Donald Megbie, as he drove home through the silent streets of the West End, heard a tune in his heart, which responded and lilted to the regular beat of the horse's feet upon the macadam. And the burden of the tune was "Love."