The Gap in the Curtain

But they had failed, for the spectre rubbed shoulders with each. They might already have the poison in their blood, and in an hour be blue and swollen. One heard the rumble of the dead-cart on the outer cobbles making a dreadful bass to the fiddles.

I have never received a stronger impression from any picture. I think I must have cried out, for Goodeve came close to me.

'My God, what a thing!' I said. 'The man who painted that was a devil!'

'He understood the meaning of fear,' was the answer.

'Not honest human fear,' I said. 'That is the panic of hell.'

Goodeve shook his head.

'Only fear. Everybody there has still a hope that they may escape.

They are still only fearful and anxious. Panic will come when the first yellow pustules show on the skin. For panic you must have a certainty.'

Something in his tone made me turn my eyes from the picture to his face. He had become like all his ancestors; the firm modern moulding had slackened into something puzzled and uncertain, as of a man groping in a dim world. And in his eyes and around his lips was the grey shadow of a creeping dread.

My mind flew back to Flambard. I knew now that on that June morning Goodeve had received some fateful message. I thought I could guess what the message had been.

2

Chapter

We drifted to the library, and dropped into chairs on each side of the hearth. It was a chilly night, so the fire had been kept high, and the room was so arranged that the light was concentrated around where we sat, and the rest left in shadow. So I had a good view of Goodeve's face against a dusky background. He had lit a pipe, and was staring at the logs, his whole body relaxed like a tired man's. But I caught him casting furtive glances in my direction. He wanted to tell me something; perhaps he saw that I had guessed, and wanted me to ask a question, but I felt oddly embarrassed and waited.

He spoke first.

'Moe is dead,' he said simply, and I nodded.

'It is a pity,' he went on. 'I should have liked another talk with him.

Did you understand his theories?'

I shook my head.

'No more did I,' he said. 'I don't think I ever could. I have been reading Paston and Crevalli and all round the subject, but I can't get the hang of it. My mind hasn't been trained that way.'

'Nor mine,' I replied. 'Nor, as far as I can gather, that of anybody living. Moe seems to have got into a world of his own where no one could keep up with him.'

'It's a pity,' he said again. 'If one could have followed his reasoning and been able to judge for one's self its value, it would have made a difference … perhaps.'

'I ought to tell you,' I said, 'that I've been making enquiries, and I find that our best people are not inclined to take Moe as gospel.'

'So I gather. But I'm not sure that that helps. Even if his theories were all wrong, the fact would still remain that he could draw back the curtain a little. It may have been an illusion, of course, but we can't tell … yet.'

He stared into the fire, and then said very gently, 'You see—I got a glimpse inside.'

'I know,' I said.

'Yes,' he went on, 'and I believe you have guessed what I saw.'

I nodded.

'Let me tell you everything. It's a comfort to me to be able to tell you … You're the only man I could ever confide in … You were there yourself and saw enough to take it seriously … I read, for about a quarter of a second, my own obituary. One takes in a good deal in a flash of time if the mind is expectant. It was a paragraph about two inches long far down on the right-hand side of The Times page opposite the leaders—the usual summary of what is given at length in the proper obituary pages. It regretted to announce the death of Sir Robert Goodeve, Baronet, of Goodeve, MP for the Marton division of Dorset. There was no doubt about the man it meant … Then it said something about a growing political reputation and a maiden speech which would not be soon forgotten. I have the exact words written down.'

'Nothing more?'

'No … yes. There was another dead man in the paragraph, a Colonel Dugald Chatto, of Glasgow … That was all.'

Goodeve knocked out his pipe and got to his feet. He stretched himself, as if his legs had cramped, and I remember thinking how fine a figure of a man he was as he stood tensely in the firelight. He was staring away from me into a dim corner of the room. He seemed to be endeavouring by a bodily effort to shake himself free of a burden.

I tried to help.

'I'm in the confidence of only one of the others,' I said. 'Reggie Daker.

He read the announcement of his departure for Yucatan on a scientific expedition. Reggie knows nothing about science and hates foreign parts, and he declares that nothing will make him budge from England. He says that forewarned is forearmed, and that he is going to see that The Times next June is put in the cart. He has already forgotten all about the thing … There seems to me to be some sense in that point of view. If you know what's coming you can take steps to avoid it … For example, supposing you had given up your parliamentary candidature, you could have made The Times wrong on that point, so why shouldn't you be able to make it wrong on others?'

He turned and bent his strong dark brows on me.

'I thought of that. I can't quite explain why, but it seemed to me scarcely to be playing the game. Rather like funking. No. I'm not going to alter my plan of life out of fear. That would be giving in like a coward.'

But there was none of the boisterousness of defiance in his voice. He spoke heavily, as if putting into words an inevitable but rather hopeless resolution.

'Look here, Goodeve,' I said. 'You and I are rational men of the world and we can't allow ourselves to be the sport of whimsies. There are two ways of looking at this Flambard business. It may have been pure illusion caused by the hypnotic powers of a tremendous personality like Moe, with no substance of reality behind it. It may have been only a kind of dream. If you dreamed you were being buried in Westminster Abbey next week you wouldn't pay the slightest attention.'

'That is a possible view,' he said. But I could see that it was not the view he took himself. Moe's influence upon him had been so profound, that, though he could not justify his faith on scientific grounds, he was a convinced believer.

I had a sudden idea.

'Listen to me. I can prove that it is illusion. Moe told us that our minds could get a larger field of observation, which would include part of the future. Yes, but the observing thing was still our mind, and that presup-poses a living man. Therefore for a man to see the report of his death is a contradiction in terms.'

He turned his unquiet eyes on me.

'Curious that you should say that, for I raised the very point with Moe. His answer was that the body of the observer might be dead, but that the mind did not die … I was bound to admit his argument, for, you see, I, too, believe in the immortality of the soul.'

There was such complete conviction in his tone that I had to give up my point, though I was not convinced, even on Goodeve's hypothesis.

'Very well. The other view is that, by some unknown legerdemain, you actually saw what will be printed in The Times on the next tenth of June. But it may be a hoax or some journalistic blunder. False news of a man's death has often been published. You remember Billy Devereux seven years ago. Reggie Daker isn't going to Yucatan, and there's no more reason why you should be dead.'

He smiled, and his voice was a little more cheerful. 'I would point out,' he said, 'that there is a considerable difference between the cases.

Going to Yucatan is a voluntary act which, requires the actor's co-operation, while dying is usually an