“Stop boy!” cried Dr. Cairn.
Robert started, looking at his father across the table.
“You are already in danger, Rob. I won’t disguise that fact from you. Myra Duquesne is no relation of Ferrara’s; therefore, since she inherits half of Sir Michael’s fortune, a certain course must have suggested itself to Antony. You, patently, are an obstacle! That’s bad enough, boy; let us deal with it before we look for further trouble.”
He took up a blackened briar from the table and began to load it.
“Regarding your next move,” he continued slowly, “there can be no question. You must return to your chambers!”
“What!”
“There can be no question, Rob. A kind of attack has been made upon you which only you can repel. If you desert your chambers, it will be repeated here. At present it is evidently localised. There are laws governing these things; laws as immutable as any other laws in Nature. One of them is this: the powers of darkness (to employ a conventional and significant phrase) cannot triumph over the powers of Will. Below the Godhead, Will is the supreme force of the Universe. Resist! You must resist, or you are lost!”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I mean that destruction of mind, and of something more than mind, threatens you. If you retreat you are lost. Go back to your rooms. Seek your foe; strive to haul him into the light and crush him! The phenomena at your rooms belong to one of two varieties; at present it seems impossible to classify them more closely. Both are dangerous, though in different ways. I suspect, however, that a purely mental effort will be sufficient to disperse these nauseous shadow-things. Probably you will not be troubled again tonight, but whenever the phenomena return, take off your coat to them! You require no better companion than the one you had:—Mark Twain! Treat your visitors as one might imagine he would have treated them; as a very poor joke! But whenever it begins again, ring me up. Don’t hesitate, whatever the hour. I shall be at the hospital all day, but from seven onward I shall be here and shall make a point of remaining. Give me a call when you return, now, and if there is no earlier occasion, another in the morning. Then rely upon my active cooperation throughout the following night.”
“Active, sir?”
“I said active, Rob. The next repetition of these manifestations shall be the last. Good night. Remember, you have only to lift the receiver to know that you are not alone in your fight.”
Robert Cairn took a second cigar, lighted it, finished his whisky, and squared his shoulders.
“Good night, sir,” he said. “I shan’t run away a third time!”
When the door had closed upon his exit, Dr. Cairn resumed his restless pacing up and down the library. He had given Roman counsel, for he had sent his son out to face, alone, a real and dreadful danger. Only thus could he hope to save him, but nevertheless it had been hard. The next fight would be a fight to the finish, for Robert had said, “I shan’t run away a third time;” and he was a man of his word.
As Dr. Cairn had declared, the manifestations belonged to one of two varieties. According to the most ancient science in the world, the science by which the Egyptians, and perhaps even earlier peoples, ordered their lives, we share this, our plane of existence, with certain other creatures, often called Elementals. Mercifully, these fearsome entities are invisible to our normal sight, just as the finer tones of music are inaudible to our normal powers of hearing.
Victims of delirium tremens, opium smokers, and other debauchees, artificially open that finer, latent power of vision; and the horrors which surround them are not imaginary but are Elementals attracted to the victim by his peculiar excesses.
The crawling things, then, which reeked abominably might be Elementals (so Dr. Cairn reasoned) superimposed upon Robert Cairn’s consciousness by a directing, malignant intelligence. On the other hand they might be mere glamours—or thought-forms—thrust upon him by the same wizard mind; emanations from an evil, powerful will.
His reflections were interrupted by the ringing of the phone bell. He took up the receiver.
“Hullo!”
“That you, sir? All’s clear here, now. I’m turning in.”
“Right. Good night, Rob. Ring me in the morning.”
“Good night, sir.”
Dr. Cairn refilled his charred briar, and, taking from a drawer in the writing table a thick MS., sat down and began to study the closely-written pages. The paper was in the cramped handwriting of the late Sir Michael Ferrara, his travelling companion through many strange adventures; and the sun had been flooding the library with dimmed golden light for several hours, and a bustle below stairs acclaiming an awakened household, ere the doctor’s studies were interrupted. Again, it was the phone bell. He rose, switched off the reading-lamp, and lifted the instrument.
“That you, Rob?”
“Yes, sir. All’s well, thank God! Can I breakfast with you?”
“Certainly, my boy!” Dr. Cairn glanced at his watch. “Why, upon my soul it’s seven o’clock!”
VI
The Beetles
Sixteen hours had elapsed and London’s clocks were booming eleven that night, when the uncanny drama entered upon its final stage. Once more Dr. Cairn sat alone with Sir Michael’s manuscript, but at frequent intervals his glance would stray to the telephone at his elbow. He had given orders to the effect that he was on no account to be disturbed and that his car should be ready at the door from ten o’clock onward.
As the sound of the final strokes was dying away the expected summons came. Dr. Cairn’s jaw squared and his mouth was very grim, when he recognised his son’s voice over the wires.
“Well, boy?”
“They’re here, sir—now, while I’m speaking! I have been fighting—fighting hard—for half an hour. The place smells like a charnel-house and the—shapes are taking definite, horrible form! They have … eyes!” His voice sounded harsh. “Quite black the eyes are, and they shine like beads! It’s
