The dream detective
his seat and followed her. As she quitted the room, he came out behind
her; and in the better light on the landing, as he told us later, saw
that she was deathly pale.
“Miss Brearley!” he said.
She turned.
“_Ssh!_” she whispered, anxiously, “it is nothing--Doctor Fairbank.
The excitement has made me rather faint, that is all. I shall go to my
room and lie down. Believe me, I am quite well!”
“But there is no servant in the house,” he whispered, “if you should
become worse----”
“If I need anything I shall not hesitate to ring,” she answered. “It
is so still, you will hear the bell. Please go back! He has hoped for
so much from this.”
Fairbank was nonplussed. But the appeal was so obviously sincere, and
the situation so difficult, that he saw no alternative. Ailsa Brearley
passed along the corridor. Fairbank slipped back into the study, where
Moris Klaw and I anxiously awaited him.
From the inner room came Brearley’s voice, muffled.
The long vigil began.
I found myself claimed by the all-pervading spirit of mystery. For
some little time I listened in expectation of hearing Ailsa Brearley
returning. But soon the strange business of the night claimed my mind,
to the exclusion of every other idea. I found myself listening only
for Brearley’s muffled voice. Although the half-audible words were
meaningless, their sound assumed, as time wore on, a curious
significance. They seemed potent with a strange power proceeding not
_from_ them, but _to_ them.
Then I heard a new sound.
Fairbank heard it--for I saw him start, and Moris Klaw muttered
something.
It did not come from the trees outside, nor from the inner room. It
was somewhere in the house.
A faint rattling it was, bell-like but toneless.
Brearley’s voice had ceased.
Again the sound rose--nearer.
I turned my head toward Fairbank, and seemed to perceive him more
clearly. I had less difficulty in distinguishing the objects about.
Again it came--the shivering, bell-like sound.
Even the strings of the harp were visible now.
“Curse me!” came Moris Klaw’s hoarse whisper; “it seems to grow light!
That is a delusion of the mind, my friends--repel it--repel it!”
Fairbank drew a quick, sibilant breath. A half-suppressed exclamation
from Klaw followed; for the high-pitched rattle came from close at
hand! The sense of the supernormal had grown unbearable. Fairbank’s
science and my own semi-scepticism were but weapons of sand against
it.
The door opened silently, admitting a flood of the soft moon-like
radiance. And Ailsa Brearley entered!
Her slim figure was bathed in light; her fair hair, unbound, swept
like a gleaming torrent about her shoulders. She looked magnificently,
unnaturally beautiful. A diaphanous veil was draped over her face.
From her radiant figure I turned away my head in sudden, stark _fear!_
Fairbank, clutching the arms of his chair, seemed to strive to look
away, too.
Her widely opened eyes, visible even through the veil, were awful in
their supernormal, significant beauty. _Was_ it Ailsa Brearley? I
clenched my fists convulsively; I felt my reason tottering. As the
luminous figure, so terrible in its perfect loveliness, moved slowly
toward the inner door, with set gaze that was not for any about her,
Doctor Fairbank wrenched himself from his chair and leapt forward.
“Ailsa!”
His voice came in a hoarse shriek. But it was drowned by a rumbling
roar from Moris Klaw.
“Look away! Look away!” he shouted. “The good God! Do not look at her!
_Look away!_”
The warning came too late. Fairbank had all but reached her side, when
she turned her eyes upon him--looking fully in his face.
With no sound or cry he went down as though felled with a mighty blow!
She passed to the door of the inner room. It swung open noiselessly. A
stifling cloud of some pungent perfume swept into the study; and the
door reclosed.
“Fairbank!” I whispered, huskily. “My God! he’s dead!”
Moris Klaw sprang forward to where Fairbank, clearly visible in the
soft light, lay huddled upon the floor.
“Lift him!” he hissed. “We must get him out--before she returns--you
understand?--before she returns!”
Bending together, we raised the doctor’s inanimate body and half
dragged, half carried him from the room. On the landing we laid him
down and stood panting. A voice, clear and sweet, was speaking. I
recognized neither the language nor the voice. But each liquid
syllable thrilled me like an icy shock. I met Moris Klaw’s gaze, set
upon me through the pince-nez.
“Do not listen, my friend!” he said.
Raising Fairbank, we dragged him into the first room we came to--and
Klaw locked the door.
“Here we remain,” he rumbled, “until something has gone back where it
came from!”
Fairbank lay motionless at our feet.
Presently came the rattling.
“It is the sistrum,” whispered Moris Klaw, “the sacred instrument of
the Isis temples.”
The sound passed--and faded.
“Searles! Fairbank!”--it was Brearley’s voice, sobbingly intense--“do
not _touch_ her! Do not _look_ at her!”
The study door crashed open and I heard his sandals pattering on the
landing.
“Fairbank! Mr. Klaw! Good God! Answer me! Tell me you are safe!”
Moris Klaw unlocked the door.
Brearley, his face white as death and bathed in perspiration, stood
outside. As Klaw appeared, he leapt forward, wild-eyed.
“Quick! Did any one----”
“Fairbank!” I said, huskily.
Brearley pushed into the room and turned on the light. Fairbank, very
pale, lay propped against an armchair. Moris Klaw immediately dropped
on his knee beside him and felt his heart.
“Ah, the good God! He is alive!” he whispered. “Get some water--no
brandy, my friend--water. Then look to your sister!”
Brearley plunged his trembling hands into his hair and tugged at it
distractedly.
“How was I to know!” he moaned, “how was I to know! There is water in
the bottle, Mr. Klaw. Searles will come with me. I must look for
Ailsa!”
A bizarre figure, in his linen robe, he ran off. Moris Klaw waved me
to follow him.
The door of his sister’s room was closed.
He knocked, but there was no reply. He turned the knob and went in,
whilst I waited in the corridor.
“Ailsa!” I heard him call, and again, “Ailsa!” then, following an
interval, “Are you all right, dear?” he whispered.
“Oh, thank Heaven it is finished!” came a murmur in Ailsa Brearley’s
soft voice. “It _is_ finished, is it not?”
“Quite finished,” he answered.
“Just look at my hair!” she went on, with returning animation. “My
head was so bad--I think that was why I took it down. Then I must have
dropped off to sleep.”
“All right, dear,” said Brearley. “I want you to come downstairs; be
as quick as you can.”
He rejoined me in the corridor.
“She was lying with her hair strewn all over the pillow!” he
whispered, “and she had been burning something--ashes in the
hearth----”
Ailsa came out. She seemed suddenly to observe her brother’s haggard
face.
“Is there anything the matter?” she said, quickly. “Oh! has something
dreadful happened?”
“No, dear,” he answered, reassuringly. “Only Doctor Fairbank was
overcome----”
She turned very pale.
“He is not ill?”
“No. He became faint. You can come and see for yourself.”
Very quickly we all hurried downstairs. Moris Klaw, on his knees
beside the doctor, was trying to force something between his clenched
teeth. Ailsa, with a little cry, ran forward and knelt upon the other
side of him.
“Ralph!” she whispered; “Ralph!”--and smoothed the hair back from his
forehead.
He sighed deeply, and with an effort swallowed the draught which Klaw
held to his lips. A moment later he opened his eyes, glaring wildly
into Ailsa’s face.
“Ralph!” she said, brokenly.
Then, realizing how tenderly she had spoken--using his Christian
name--she hung her graceful head in hot confusion. But he had heard
her. And the wild light died from his eyes. He took both her hands in
his own and held them fast; then, rather unsteadily, he stood up.
As his features came more fully into the light, we all saw that a
small bruise discoloured his forehead, squarely between the brows.
Then Brearley, who had been back into the study, came running, crying:
“The papyrus! And my translation! Gone!”
I thought of the ashes in Ailsa Brearley’s room.
IV
“My friends,” rumbled Moris Klaw, impressively, “we are fortunate. We
have passed through scorching fires unscathed!”
He applied himself with vigour to the operating of the scent spray.
“God forgive me!” said Brearley. “What did I do?”
“I will tell you, my friend,” replied Klaw; “you clothed a thought in
the beautiful form which you knew as your sister! Ah! You stare!
Ritual, my friends, is the soul of what the ignorant call magic. With
the sacred incense, _kyphi_ (yes, I detected it!), you invoked secret
powers. Those powers, Mr. Brearley, were but _thoughts_. All such
forces are thoughts.
“Thoughts are things--and you gathered together in this house, by that
ancient formula, a thought thing created by generations of worshippers
who have worshipped the moon!
“The light that we saw was only the moonlight, the sounds that we
heard were thought-sounds. But so powerful was this mighty
thought-force, this centuries-old power which you loosed upon us, that
it drove out Miss Ailsa’s own thoughts from her mind, bringing what
she mistook for sleep; and it implanted itself there!
“She was transformed by that mighty power which for a time dwelled
within her. She was as powerful, as awful, as a goddess! None might
look upon her and be sane. Hypnotism has similarities with the ancient
science of thought--yes! _Suggestion_ is the secret of all so-called
occult phenomena!”
With his eyes gleaming oddly, he stepped forward, resting his long
white hands upon Fairbank’s shoulders.
“Doctor,” he rumbled, “you have a bruise on your forehead.”
“Have I?” said Fairbank, in surprise. “I hadn’t noticed it.”
“Because it is not a physical bruise; it is a mental bruise,
physically reflected! Nearly were you slain, my friend--oh, so nearly!
But another force--as great as the force of ancient thought--weakened
the blow. Doctor Fairbank, it is fortunate that Miss Ailsa loves you!”
His frank words startled us all.
“Look well at the shape of this little bruise, my friends,” continued
Moris Klaw. “Mr. Brearley--it is a shape that will be familiar to you.
See! it is thus.” He drew an imaginary outline with his long
forefinger--
“And that is the sign of Isis!”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Alterations to the text:
Abandon the use of drop-caps.
Punctuation: fix a few quotation mark pairings/nestings and missing
periods.
[First Episode]
Change “I waited for no further _explanatians_, but, hastily” to
_explanations_.
“her voice, her entire person, _as_ certainly charming--to” to
_was_.
[Third Episode]
“tell him all we know about the ax of ‘Black _Goeffrey_.’” to
_Geoffrey_.
“In the _blidness_ of his anger, Heidelberger failed” to _blindness_.
[Fourth Episode]
“We were all _star ng_ at Moris Klaw, spellbound with” to _staring_.
[Fifth Episode]
“He was accompanied by Sir John Carron, Mr. Gautami _Chini_” to
_Chinje_.
“he removed his coat and _waitscoat_ and threw them upon the table” to
_waistcoat_.
[Sixth Episode]
“Having _re-fastened_ the door, we laid him on a sofa” to
_refastened_.
“the pistol he _carred_ as he rose slowly to his feet” to _carried_.
(“_Curari!_” he said, _horasely_, “the ancient arrow poison) to
_hoarsely_.
[Tenth Episode]
“that one in physics would receive _f om_ you, Fairbank?” to _from_.
“_Whatver_ happens make no noise.” to _Whatever_.
“As Klaw appeared, he leapt forward, _wild eyed_” to _wild-eyed_.
[End of text]