The Complete Novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Arthur Conan DoyleЧитать онлайн книгу.
real places in the order of creation upon the further side?
The circle did not break up at once. The visitors wanted to talk, and the Maileys to listen.
“What I mean,” said Roxton, “it’s doosed interestin’ and all that, but there is a sort of variety-show element in it. What! difficult to be sure it’s really real, if you take what I mean.”
“That is what I feel also,” said Malone. “Of course on its face value it is simply unspeakable. It is a thing so great that all ordinary happenings become commonplace. That I grant. But the human mind is very strange. I’ve read that case Moreton Prince examined, and Miss Beauchamp and the rest; also the results of Charcot, the great Nancy hypnotic school. They could turn a man into anything. The mind seems to be like a rope which can be unravelled into its various threads. Then each thread is a different personality which may take dramatic form, and act and speak as such. That man is honest, and he could not normally produce these effects. But how do we know that he is not self-hypnotized, and that under those conditions one strand of him becomes Mr. Chang and another becomes a sailor and another a society lady, and so forth?”
Mailey laughed. “Every man his own Cinquevalli” said he, “but it is a rational objection and has to be met.”
“We have traced some of the cases,” said Mrs. Mailey. “There is not a doubt of it — names, addresses, everything.”
“Well, then, we have to consider the question of Terbane’s normal knowledge. How can you possibly know what he has learned? I should think a railway-porter is particularly able to pick up such information.”
“You have seen one sitting,” Mailey answered. “If you had been present at as many as we and noted the cumulative effect of the evidence you would not be sceptical.”
“That is very possible,” Malone answered. “And I daresay my doubts are very annoying to you. And yet one is bound to be brutally honest in a case like this. Anyhow, whatever the ultimate cause, I have seldom spent so thrilling an hour. Heavens! If it only is true, and if you had a thousand circles instead of one, what regeneration would result?”
“That will come,” said Mailey in his patient, determined fashion. “We shall live to see it. I am sorry the thing has not forced conviction upon you. However, you must come again.”
But it so chanced that a further experience became unnecessary. Conviction came in a full flood and in a strange fashion that very evening. Malone had hardly got back to the office, and was seated at his desk drawing up some sort of account from his notes of all that had happened in the afternoon, when Mailey burst into the room, his yellow beard bristling with excitement. He was waving an Evening News in his hand. Without a word he seated himself beside Malone and turned the paper over. Then he began to read:
ACCIDENT IN THE CITY.
This afternoon shortly after five o’clock, an old house, said to date from the fifteenth century, suddenly collapsed. It was situated between Lesser Colman Street and Elliot Square, and next door to the Veterinary Society’s Headquarters. Some preliminary cracking warned the occupants and most of them had time to escape. Three of them, however, James Beale William Moorson, and a woman whose name has not been ascertained, were caught by the falling rubbish. Two of these seem to have perished at once, but the third, James Beale, was pinned down by a large beam and loudly demanded help. A saw was brought, and one of the occupants of the house, Samuel Hawkin, showed great gallantry in an attempt to free the unfortunate man. Whilst he was sawing the beam, however, a fire broke out among the debris around him, and though he persevered most manfully, and continued until he was himself badly scorched, it was impossible for him to save Beale, who probably died from suffocation. Hawkin was removed to the London Hospital, and it is reported to-night that he is in no immediate danger.
“That’s that!” said Mailey, folding up the paper. “Now, Mr. Thomas Didymus, I leave you to your conclusions,” and the enthusiast vanished out of the office as precipitately as he had entered.
For the incidents recorded in this chapter vide Appendix.
11. Where Silas Linden Comes Into His Own
Silas Linden, prize-fighter and fake-medium, had had some good days in his life — days crowded with incidents for good or evil. There was the time when he had backed Rosalind at 100 to 1 in the Oaks and had spent twenty-four hours of brutal debauchery on the strength of it. There was the day also when his favourite right uppercut had connected in most accurate and rhythmical fashion with the protruded chin of Bull Wardell of Whitechapel, whereby Silas put himself in the way of a Lonsdale Belt and a try for the championship. But never in all his varied career had he such a day as this supreme one, so it is worth our while to follow him to the end of it. Fanatical believers have urged that it is dangerous to cross the path of spiritual things when the heart is not clean. Silas Linden’s name might be added to their list of examples, but his cup of sin was full and overflowing before the judgment fell.
He emerged from the room of Algernon Mailey with every reason to know that Lord Roxton’s grip was as muscular as ever. In the excitement of the struggle he had hardly realized his injuries, but now he stood outside the door with his hand to his bruised throat and a hoarse stream of oaths pouring through it. His breast was aching also where Malone had planted his knee, and even the successful blow which had struck Mailey down had brought retribution, or it had jarred that injured hand of which he had complained to his brother. Altogether, if Silas Linden was in a most cursed temper, there was a very good reason for his mood.
“I’ll get you one at a time,” he growled, looking back with his angry pigs’ eyes at the outer door of the flats. “You wait my lads, and see!” Then with sudden purpose he swung off down the street.
It was to the Bardsley Square Police Station that he made his way, and he found the jovial, rubicund, black-moustached Inspector Murphy seated at his desk.
“Well, what do you want?” asked the inspector in no very friendly voice.
“I hear you got that medium right and proper.”
“Yes, we did. I learn he was your brother.”
“That’s neither here not there. I don’t hold with such things in any man. But you got your conviction. What is there for me in it?”
“Not a shilling.”
“What? Wasn’t it I that gave the information? Where would you have been if I had not given you the office?”
“If there had been a fine we might have allowed you something We would have got something, too. Mr. Melrose sent him to gaol. There is nothing for anybody.”
“So say you. I’m damned sure you and those two women got something out of it. Why the hell should I give away my own brother for the sake of the likes of you? You’ll find your own bird next time.”
Murphy was a choleric man with a sense of his own importance. He was not to be bearded thus in his own seat of office. He rose with a very red face.
“I’ll tell you what, Silas Linden, I could find my own bird and never move out of this room. You had best get out of this quick, or you may chance to stay here longer than you like. We’ve had complaints of your treatment of those two children of yours, and the children’s protection folk are taking an interest. Look out that we don’t take an interest, too.”
Silas Linden flung out of the room with his temper hotter than ever, and a couple of rum-and-waters on his way home did not help to appease him. On the contrary, he had always been a man who grew more dangerous in his cups. There were many of his trade who refused to drink with him.
Silas lived in one of a row of small brick houses named Bolton’s Court, lying at the back of Tottenham Court Road. His was the end house of a cul-desac, with the side wall of a huge brewery beyond. These dwellings were very small, which was probably the reason