The rising blizzard began to howl round the tower as though many wailing demons clamoured for admittance. A veil of snow swept across uncurtained windows, dimming distant light. Dom Patrick Donegal lighted a cigarette; his hands were not entirely steady.
“If you know what really happened to me to-night, Mr. Smith,” he said, his rich, orator’s voice lowered almost to a murmur, “for heaven’s sake tell me. I have been deluged with telephone messages and telegrams, but in accordance with your instructions—or” (he glanced at the restlessly promenading figure) “should I say orders—I have answered none of them.”
Smith, pipe alight, paused, staring down at the priest.
“You were brought straight back after your collapse?”
“I was. They would have taken me home, but mysterious instructions from Washington resulted in my being brought here. I came to my senses in the small bedroom which adjoins this study.”
“Your last memory being?”
“Of standing before the microphone, my notes in my hand.”
“Quite,” said Smith, beginning to walk up and down again. “Your words, as I recollect them, were: ‘But if the Constitution is to be preserved, if even a hollow shell of Liberty is to remain to us, there is one evil in this country which must be eradicated, torn up by its evil roots, utterly destroyed. . . .’ Then came silence, a confusion of voices, and an announcement that you had been seized with a sudden illness. Does your memory, Father, go as far as these words?”
“Not quite,” the priest answered wearily, resting his head upon his hand and making a palpable effort to concentrate. “I began to lose my grip of the situation some time earlier in the address. I experienced most singular sensations. I could not co-ordinate my ideas, and the studio in which I was speaking alternately contracted and enlarged. At one moment the ceiling appeared to become black and to be descending upon me. At another, I thought that I stood in the base of an immeasurably lofty tower.” His voice grew in power as he spoke, his Irish brogue became more pronounced. “Following these dreadful sensations came an overpowering numbness of mind and body. I remember no more.”
“Who attended you?” snapped Smith.
“My own physician, Dr. Reilly.”
“No one but Dr. Reilly, your secretary, Mr. Richet, and I suppose the driver of the car in which you returned, came up here?”
“No one, Mr. Smith. Such, I am given to understand, were the explicit and authoritative orders given a few minutes after the occurrence.”
Smith stopped on the other side of the desk, staring down at the abbot.
“Your manuscript has not been recovered?” he asked slowly.
“I regret to say, no. Definitely, it was left behind in the studio.”
“On the contrary,” snapped Smith angrily, “definitely it was not! The place has been searched from wall to wall by those who know their business. No, Father Abbot, your manuscript was not there. I
The ever-rising wind in its fury shook the Tower of the Holy Thorn, shrieking angrily round that lofty room in which two men faced a problem destined in its outcome to affect the whole nation. The priest, a rapid, heavy smoker, lighted another cigarette.
“I cannot make it out,” he said—and now a natural habit of authority began to assert itself in his voice—”I cannot make out why you attach such importance to my notes for this speech, nor why my sudden illness, naturally disturbing to myself, should result in this sensational Federal action. Really, my friend”—he leaned back in his chair, staring up at the tanned, eager face of his visitor—”in effect, I am a prisoner here. This, I may say, is intolerable. I await your explanation, Mr. Smith.”
Smith bent forward, resting nervous brown hands on the priest’s desk and staring intently into those upturned, observant eyes.
“What was the nature of the warning you were about to give the nation?” he demanded. “What is this evil growth which must be uprooted and destroyed?”
These words produced a marked change in the bearing of the Abbot Donegal. They seemed to bring recognition of something he would willingly have forgotten. Again he ran his fingers through his hair, now almost distractedly.
“God help me,” he said in a very low voice, “I don’t know!”
He suddenly stood up; his glance was wild.
“I cannot remember. My mind is a complete blank upon this subject—upon everything relating to it. I think some lesion must have occurred in my brain. Dr. Reilly, although reticent, holds, I believe, the same opinion.”
“Nothing of the kind,” snapped Smith; “but that manuscript has to be found! There’s life or death in it.”
He ceased speaking abruptly and seemed to be listening to the voice of the storm. Then, ignoring the priest, he suddenly sprang across the room and threw the door wide open.
Mr. Richet stood bowing on the threshold.
Chapter 2
CHINESE HEAD
In an apartment having a curiously painted ceiling (one might have imagined it to be situated in the crest of a minaret) a strange figure was seated at a long, narrow table. Light, amber light, came through four near-Gothic windows set so high that only a giant could have looked out of them. The man, whose age might have been anything from sixty to seventy—he had a luxurious growth of snow-white hair—was heavily built, weaning a dilapidated woollen dressing-gown;
