The dream detective
“Sorry!” said Fairbank, turning to Brearley. “But if it is not to be
made public I don’t altogether follow the idea. What _do_ you intend,
Brearley?”
“I intend to experiment,” answered Brearley.
“In what way?” I asked.
“In every way possible!”
Doctor Fairbank sat back in his chair and looked thoughtful.
“Rather a comprehensive scheme?”
Brearley toyed with the bundle of notes under his hand.
“I have already,” he said, “exhaustively examined seven of the
possibilities; the eighth, and--I believe, the last--remains to be
considered.”
“Listen now to me, Mr. Brearley,” said Moris Klaw, wagging a long
finger. “I am here, the old curious, and find myself in delightful
company. But until this evening I know nothing of your work except
that I have read all your books. For me you will be so good as to
outline all the points--yes?”
Otter Brearley mutely sought permission of the company, and turned the
leaves of his manuscript. All men have an innate love of “talking
shop,” but few can make such talk of general interest. Brearley was an
exception in this respect. He loved to talk of Egypt, of the Pharaohs,
of the temples, of the priesthood and its mysteries; but others loved
to hear him. That made all the difference.
“The discovery,” he now began, “upon which I have blundered--for pure
accident, alone, led me to it--assumes its great importance by reason
of the absolute mystery surrounding certain phases of Egyptian
worship. In the old days, Fairbank, you will recall that it was my
supreme ambition to learn the secrets of Isis-worship as practised in
early Egyptian times. Save for impostors, and legitimate imaginative
writers, no one has yet lifted the veil of Isis. That mystical
ceremony by which a priest was consecrated to the goddess, or made an
arch adept, was thought to be hopelessly lost, or, by others, to be a
myth devised by the priesthood to awe the ignorant masses. In fact, we
know little of the entire religion but its outward form. Of that
occult lore so widely attributed to its votaries we know
nothing--absolutely nothing! By we, I mean students in general. I,
individually, have made a step, if not a stride, into that holy of
holies!”
“Mind you don’t lose yourself!” said Fairbank, lightly.
But, professionally, he was displeased with Brearley’s drawn face and
with the feverish brightness of his eyes. So much was plain for all to
see. In the eyes of Ailsa Brearley, so like, yet so unlike, her
brother’s, he read understanding of his displeasure, I think, together
with a pathetic appeal.
Brearley waved his long white hand carelessly.
“Rest assured of that, Doctor!” he replied. “The labyrinth in which I
find myself is intricate, I readily admit; but all my steps have been
well considered. To return, Mr. Klaw”--addressing the latter--“I have
secured the mummy of one of those arch adepts! That he was one is
proved by the papyrus, presumably in his own writing, which lay upon
his breast! I unwrapped the mummy in Egypt, where it now reposes; but
the writing I brought back with me and have recently deciphered. A
glance had showed me that it was not the usual excerpts from the ‘Book
of the Dead.’ Six months’ labour has proved it to be a detailed
account of his initiation into the inner mysteries!”
“Is such a papyrus unique?” I asked.
“Unique!” cried Moris Klaw. “Name of a little blue man! It is
priceless!”
“But why,” I pursued, “should this priest, alone among the many who
must have been so initiated, have left an account of the ceremony?”
“It was forbidden to divulge any part, any word, of it, Searles!” said
Brearley. “Departure from this law was visited with fearful
punishments in this world and dire penalties in the next. Khamus, for
so this priest was named, well knew this. But some reason which, I
fear, can never be known, prompted him to write the papyrus. It is
probable, if not certain, that no eye but his, and mine, has read what
is written there.”
A silence of a few seconds followed his words.
“Yes,” rumbled Klaw, presently; “it is undoubtedly a discovery of
extraordinary importance, this. You agree, my friend?”
I nodded.
“That’s evident,” I replied. “But I cannot altogether get the hang of
the ceremony itself, Brearley. That is the point upon which I am
particularly hazy.”
“To read you the entire account in detail,” Brearley resumed, “would
occupy too long, and would almost certainly confuse you. But the
singular thing is this: Khamus distinctly asserts that the goddess
appeared to him. His writing is eminently sane and reserved, and his
account of the ceremony, up to that point, highly interesting. Now, I
have tested the papyrus itself--though no possibility of fraud is
really admissible, and I have been able to confirm many of the
statements made therein. There is only one point, it seems to me,
remaining to be settled.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“Whether, as a result of the ceremony described, Khamus did see Isis,
or whether he merely imagined he did!”
No one spoke for a moment. Then--
“My friend,” said Moris Klaw, “I have a daughter whom I have named
Isis. Why did I name her Isis? Mr. Brearley, you must know that that
name has a mystic and beautiful significance. But I will say
something--I am glad that my daughter is not here! Mr.
Brearley--beware! Beware, I say: you play with burning fires; my
friend--beware!”
His words impressed us all immensely; for there was something
underlying them more portentous than appeared upon the surface.
Fairbank stared at Brearley, hard.
“Do I understand,” he began, quietly, “that you admit the first
possibility?”
“Certainly!” replied Brearley, with conviction.
“You are prepared to admit the existence, as an entity, of Isis?”
“I am prepared to admit the existence of _anything_ until it can be
proved not to exist!”
“Then, admitting the existence of Isis, what should you assume it, or
her, to be?”
“That is not a matter for presumption; it is a matter for inquiry!”
The doctor glanced quickly toward Ailsa Brearley, and her beautiful
face was troubled.
“And this inquiry--how should you propose to conduct it?”
“In surroundings as nearly as possible identical with those described
in the papyrus,” replied Brearley, with growing excitement. “I should
follow the ceremony, word by word, as Khamus did!”
His eyes gleamed with pent-up enthusiasm. We four listeners, again
stricken silent, watched him; and again it was the doctor who broke
the silence.
“Is the ceremony spoken?”
“In the first half there is a long prayer, which is chanted.”
“But Egyptian, as a _spoken_ language, is lost, surely?”
“The exact pronunciation, or accent, is lost, of course; but there are
many who can speak it. I can, for instance.”
“And I,” rumbled Moris Klaw, gloomily. “But these special
surroundings? Eh, my friend?”
“I have spent a year in searching for the necessary things, as
specified in the writing. At last my collection is complete. Some of
the things I have had made, in the proper materials mentioned. These
materials, in some cases, have been exceedingly difficult to procure.
But now I have a complete shrine of Isis fitted up! Khamus’s
initiation took place in a small chamber of which he gives a concise
and detailed account. It is because my duplicate of this chamber is
ready that I have asked you to meet me here to-night.”
“How long have you been at work upon this inquiry?” said Fairbank.
He put the question as he might have put one relating to a patient’s
symptoms; and this Brearley detected in his tone, with sudden
resentment.
“Fairbank,” he said, huskily, “I believe you think me insane!”
With his pale, drawn face and long, fair hair, he certainly looked
anything but normal, as he sat with bright, staring eyes fixed upon
the other across the table.
“My dear chap,” replied the doctor, soothingly, “what a strange idea!
My question was prompted by a professional spirit, I will admit, for I
thought you had been sticking to this business too closely. You are
the last man in the world I should expect to go mad, Brearley, but I
should not care to answer for your nerves if you don’t give this Isis
affair a rest.”
Brearley smiled, and waved his hand characteristically. “Excuse me,
Fairbank,” he said, “but to the average person my ideas do seem
fantastic, I know. That is what makes me so touchy on the point, I
suppose.”
“You are hoping for too much from what is at most only a wild
conjecture, Brearley. Your translation of the manuscript, alone, is a
sufficiently notable achievement. If I were in your place, I should
leave the occult business to the psychical societies. ‘Let the
cobbler,’ you know.”
“It has gone too far for that,” returned Brearley, “and I must see it
through, now.”
“You are putting too much into it,” said the doctor, severely. “I want
you to promise me that if nothing results from your final experiment,
you will drop the whole inquiry.”
Brearley frowned thoughtfully.
“Do you really think I am overdoing it?” he asked.
“Sure,” was the answer. “Drop the whole thing for a month or two.”
“That is impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because the ceremony must take place upon the first night of _Panoi_,
the tenth month of the Sacred Sothic year. This we take to correspond
to the April of the Julian year.”
“Yes,” rumbled Moris Klaw, “it is to-night!”
“Why!” I cried, “of course it is! Do you mean, Brearley, that you are
going to conduct your experiment _now?_”
“Exactly,” was the calm reply; “and I have asked you all--Mr. Moris
Klaw in particular--in order that it may take place in the presence of
competent witnesses!”
Moris Klaw shook his massive head and pulled at his scanty, toneless
beard in a very significant manner. All of us were vaguely startled, I
think, and through my mind the idea flashed that the first of April
was a date pathetically appropriate for such an undertaking. Frankly,
I was beginning to entertain serious doubts regarding Brearley’s
sanity.
“I have given the servants a holiday,” said the latter. “They are at a
theatre in town; so there is no possibility of the experiment being
interrupted.”
Something of his enthusiasm, unnatural though it seemed, strangely
enough began to communicate itself to me.
“Come upstairs,” he continued, “and I will explain what we all have to
do.”
Moris Klaw squirted verbena upon his brow.
II
“Doctor Fairbank!”
Fairbank, startled by the touch on his arm, stopped. It was Ailsa
Brearley who had dropped behind her brother and now stood confronting
us. In the dense shadows of the corridor one could barely distinguish
her figure, but a stray beam of light touched one side of her pure
oval face and burnished her fair hair.
She wanted help, guidance. I had read it in her eyes before. I was
sorry that her sweet lips should have that pathetic little droop.
“Doctor Fairbank! I have wanted to ask you all night--do you think
he----”
She could not speak the words, and stood biting her lips, with eyes
averted.
“Miss Brearley,” he replied, “I do, certainly, fear that your brother
is liable to a nervous breakdown at any moment. He has applied his
mind too closely to this inquiry, and has studiously surrounded
himself with a morbid atmosphere.”
Ailsa Brearley was now watching him, anxiously.
“Should we allow him to go on with it?”
“I fear any attempt to prevent him would prove most detrimental, in
his present condition.”
“But----” There was clearly something else which she wanted to say.
“But, apart from that”--she suddenly turned to Moris Klaw,
instinctively it almost seemed--“Mr. Klaw--is this--ceremony _right?_”
He peered at her through his pince-nez.
“In what way, my dear Miss Brearley--how right?”
“Well--what I mean is--it amounts to idolatry, does it not?”