The Soul Stealer

Suddenly Charliewood stamped his foot upon the ground and peeled off his overcoat.

"I've got it," he cried. "Why, of course I've seen the very man myself this morning. This is his coat, not mine. I went to a hairdresser's this morning and left my coat in the ante-room while I was going through a massage treatment. When I came out there was a man waiting there for his turn, and I must have taken his coat in exchange for mine. And the man was this Mr. Guy Rathbone, of course. You know these dark blue coats lined with astrachan are quite ordinary, everybody is wearing them this year. And I noticed, by Jove, that the thing seemed a little tight in the cab! It's about the oddest coincidence that I've ever come across in my life!"

Sir William bowed his head in thought for a minute or two.

"Well, this is the very best opportunity you could have, my dear fellow," he said, "of making the man's acquaintance. Of course you can take him back the coat and the cigarette-case at once."

"And the letter?" Charliewood said swiftly. "The letter to Miss Poole?"

Sir William looked curiously at his guest.

"I think," he said slowly, "that I'll just spend half-an-hour with this letter first. Then you can take it away with the other things. I assure you that it will look just the same as it does now."

Charliewood shrugged his shoulders.

"Have it your own way," he said contemptuously, "but don't ask me to open any letters to a lady, that's all."

Sir William flushed up and was about to make an angry reply, when the door of the study was suddenly thrown open and they saw the butler standing there.

There was a rustle of skirts in the passage.

"Lady Poole and Miss Poole, sir," said the butler.

CHAPTER III

NEWS OF A REVOLUTION

Marjorie and Lady Poole came into the room. For two at least of the people there it was an agonizing moment. But a second before, Sir William Gouldesbrough had been proposing to steal and open a letter written by another man to his fiancée. But a second before, Mr. Eustace Charliewood, the well-known society man, had sullenly acquiesced in the proposal. And now here was Marjorie Poole confronting them.

"We thought we'd come to tea, William," Lady Poole said effusively, going forward to shake hands with her future son-in-law. "Ah, Mr. Charliewood, how do you do?" She gave him a bright nod, and he turned to Marjorie, while her mother was shaking hands with the scientist.

Charliewood's face was flushed a deep red, and his hand trembled so that the tall girl looked at him in some surprise.

Marjorie Poole was a maiden for whom many men had sighed. The oval face with its pure olive complexion, the large brown eyes, clear as a forest pool, the coiled masses of hair, the colour of deeply ripened corn, made up a personality of singular distinction and charm. She was the sort of girl of whom people asked, "Who is she?" And if younger sons and other people who knew that they could never win and wear her, said that she was a little too reserved and cold, it was only a prejudiced way of expressing her complete grace and ease of manner.

"How are you, Mr. Charliewood?" she said in a clear, bell-like voice. "I haven't seen you since the Carr's dance."

"Well, to tell the truth, Miss Poole," Charliewood answered with a voice that had a singular tremor in it, "you startled me out of my wits when you came in. Just a moment before, Sir William had mentioned your name, and we were both thinking of you when, as quick as one of those ridiculous entrances on the stage, pat upon the very word, the butler threw open the door and you came in."

"Oh, a stage entrance!" Marjorie answered. "I don't like stage entrances;" and turning away she went up to her fiancé, making it quite clear that, whatever her opinions about the conventions of the boards might be, she did not like Mr. Charliewood.

The big, light-haired man stayed for a moment or two, made a few conventional remarks, and then wished his host farewell.

As he crossed the hall he began mechanically to put on the heavy astrachan coat upon his arm, then, with a muttered curse which surprised the butler, he took it off again and hurriedly left the house.

"Well, and how are you, William?" said Lady Poole, sitting down by the fire. "Are you going to give us some tea? We have been paying calls, and I told Marjorie that we would just come on and see how you were, in case you might be in. And how is the electricity going? Why don't you invent a flying-machine? I'm sure it would be more useful than the things you do invent. How charming it would be to step out of one's bedroom window into one's aëriel brougham and tell the man to fly to the Savoy!"

Gouldesbrough did not immediately reply, but old Lady Poole was used to this.

She was a tall, florid old thing, richly dressed, with an ample and expansive manner. Now that Sir William had proposed and the forthcoming marriage was an accepted thing, the good lady felt her duty was done. Having satisfied herself of Sir William's position, his banking account and his general eligibility, she cared for nothing else, and she had grown quite accustomed to the little snubs she received from his hands from time to time.

Gouldesbrough was looking at Marjorie. His deep blue eyes had leapt up from their usual intense calm into flame. The thin-cut lips were slightly parted, the whole man had become humanized and real in a single moment.

The sinister suggestion had dropped from him as a cloak is thrown off, and he remembered nothing of the plot he had been hatching, but only saw before him the radiant girl he adored with all the force of his nature and all the passion of a dark but powerful soul, to which love had never come before.

"How are you, dearest?" he said anxiously. "Do you know that I haven't heard from you or seen you for nearly four days? Tell me all that you have been doing, all that you have been thinking."

"Four days, is it?" Lady Poole broke in. "Well, you know, my dear William, you will have plenty of time with Marjorie in the future, you mustn't attempt to monopolize her just at present. There have been so many engagements, and I'm sure you have been entirely happy with the electricity, haven't you? Such a comfort, I think, to have a hobby. It gives a real interest in life. And I'm sure, when a hobby like yours has proved so successful, it's an additional advantage. I have known so many men who have been miserable because they have never had anything to do to amuse them. And unless they take up wood-carving or fretwork or something, time hangs so heavily, and they become a nuisance to their wives. Poor Sir Frederick only took up tact as a hobby. Though that was very useful at a party, it was horribly boring in private life. One always felt he understood one too well!"

Up to the present Marjorie had said nothing. She seemed slightly restless, and the smile that played about her lips was faint and abstracted. Her thoughts seemed elsewhere, and the scrutiny of the deep blue eyes seemed slightly to unnerve her.

At that moment the butler entered, followed by a footman carrying a tea-table.

Marjorie sank down with a sigh of relief.

"I'm so tired," she said in a quiet voice. "Mother's been dragging me about to all sorts of places. William, why do you have that horrid man, Eustace Charliewood, here? He always seems about the house like a big tame cat. I detest him."

Gouldesbrough winced at the words. He had put his hand into the side-pocket of his coat, and his fingers had fallen upon a certain letter. Ah! why, indeed, did he have Charliewood for a friend?

His answer was singularly unconvincing, and the girl looked at him in surprise. He was not wont to speak thus, with so little directness.

"Oh, I don't know, dear," he answered. "He's useful, you know. He attends to a lot of things for me that I'm too busy to look after myself."

Again Marjorie did not answer.

"What have you been doing, William?" she said at length, stirring the tea in her cup.

"I've been thinking about you principally," he answered.

She frowned a little. "Oh, I don't mean in that way," she answered quickly. "Tell me about real things, important things. What are you working at now? How is your work going?"

He noticed that something like enthusiasm had crept into her voice – that she took a real interest in his science. His heart throbbed with anger. It was not thus that he wished to hear her speak. It was he himself, not his work, that he longed with all his heart and soul this stately damsel should care about.

But, resolute always in will, completely master of himself and his emotion, he turned at once and began to give her the information which she sought.

And as he spoke his voice soon began to change. It rang with power. It became vibrant, thrilling. There was a sense of inordinate strength and confidence in it.

While old Lady Poole leant back in her chair with closed eyes and a gentle smile playing about her lips, enjoying, in fact, a short and well-earned nap, the great scientist's passionate voice boomed out into the room and held Marjorie fascinated.

She leant forward, listening to him with strained attention – her lips a little parted, her face alight with interest, with eagerness.

"You want to hear, dearest," he said, "you want to hear? And to whom would I rather tell my news? At whose feet would I rather lay the results of all I am and have done? Listen! Even to you I cannot tell everything. Even to you I cannot give the full results of the problems I have been working at for so many years. But I can tell you enough to hold your attention, to interest you, as you have never been interested before."

He began to speak very slowly.

"I have done something at last, after years of patient working and thought, which it is not too much to say will revolutionize the whole of modern life – will revolutionize the whole of life, indeed, as it has never been changed before. All the other things I have done and made, all the results of my scientific work have been but off-shoots of this great central idea, which has been mine since I first began. The other things that have won me fame and fortune were discovered upon the way towards the central object of my life. And now, at last, I find myself in full possession of the truth of all my theories. In a month or two from now my work will be perfected, then the whole world will know what I have done. And the whole world will tremble, and there will be fear and wonder in the minds of men and women, and they will look at each other as if they recognized that humanity at last was waking out of a sleep and a dream."

"Is it so marvellous as all that?" she said almost in a whisper, awed by the earnestness of his manner.