I was drinking this in with both ears, and murmuring my assent. Now at last I was to be given his confidence, and I prayed that he might be inspired to go on. But he seemed to hesitate, till a glance at my respectful face reassured him.
‘The day after tomorrow a man will be in London, a man from the East, who is a great master of this knowledge. I shall see him, and you will accompany me. You will understand little, for you are only at the beginning, but you will be in the presence of wisdom.’
I murmured that I should feel honoured.
‘You will hold yourself free for all that day. The time will probably be the evening.’
After that he left with the most perfunctory goodbye. I congratulated myself on having attained to just the kind of position I wanted – that of a disciple whose subjection was so much taken for granted that he was treated like a piece of furniture. From his own point of view Medina was justified; he must have thought the subconscious control so strong, after all the tests I had been through, that my soul was like putty in his hands.
Next day I went down to Fosse and told Mary to expect me back very soon for a day or two. She had never plagued me with questions, but something in my face must have told her that I was hunting a trail, for she asked me for news and looked as if she meant to have it. I admitted that I had found out something, and said I would tell her everything when I next came back. That would only have been prudent, for Mary was a genius at keeping secrets and I wanted some repository of my knowledge in case I got knocked on the head.
When I returned to town I found another note from Sandy, also from France, signed ‘Alan Breck’ – Sandy was terribly out with his Derby winners. It was simply two lines imploring me again to make Medina believe I had broken with him and that he had gone east of Suez for good.
There was also a line from Macgillivray, saying that Dr New-hover had taken a passage on the Gudrun, leaving Hull at 6.30 p.m. on the 21st, and that a passage had been booked for C. Brand, Esqre, by the same boat. That decided me, so I wrote to my own doctor asking for the chit he had promised, to be dated the 19th. I was busy with a plan, for it seemed to me that it was my duty to follow up the one trail that presented itself, though it meant letting the rest of the business sleep. I longed more than I could say for a talk with Sandy, who was now playing the fool in France and sending me imbecile notes. I also rang up Archie Roylance, and found to my delight that he had not left town, for I ran him to ground at the Travellers’, and fixed a meeting for next morning.
‘Archie,’ I said, when we met, ‘I want to ask a great favour from you. Are you doing anything special in the next fortnight?’
He admitted that he had thought of getting back to Scotland to watch a pair of nesting greenshanks.
‘Let the greenshanks alone, like a good fellow. I’ve probably got to go to Norway on the 21st, and I shall want to get home in the deuce of a hurry. The steamer’s far too slow.’
‘Destroyer,’ he suggested.
‘Hang it, this is not the War. Talk sense. I want an aeroplane, and I want you to fetch me.’
Archie whistled long and loud.
‘You’re a surprisin’ old bird, Dick. It’s no joke bein’ a pal of yours… I dare say I could raise a bus all right. But you’ve got to chance the weather. And my recollection of Norway is that it’s not very well provided with landin’ places. What part do you favour?’
I told him the mouth of the Merdalfjord.
‘Lord! I’ve been there,’ he said. ‘It’s all as steep as the side of a house.’
‘Yes, but I’ve been studying the map, and there are some eligible little islands off the mouth, which look flattish from the contouring. I’m desperately serious, old man. I’m engaged on a job where failure means the loss of innocent lives. I’ll tell you all about it soon, but meantime you must take my word for it.’
I managed to get Archie suitably impressed, and even to interest him in the adventure, for he was never the man to lag behind in anything that included risk and wanted daring. He promised to see Hansen, who had been in his squadron and was believed to have flown many times across the North Sea. As I left him I could see that he was really enormously cheered by the prospect, for if he couldn’t watch, his blessed birds the next best thing was to have a chance of breaking his neck.
I had expected to be bidden by Medina to meet his necromancer in some den in the East End, or some Bloomsbury lodging-house. Judge of my surprise, then, when I was summoned to Claridge’s for nine-thirty that evening. When I got to the hotel it was difficult to believe that a place so bright and commonplace could hold any mystery. There was the usual dancing going on, and squads of people who had dined well were sitting around watching. Medina was standing by a fireplace talking to a man who wore a long row of miniature medals and a star, and whom I recognized as Tom Machin, who had commanded a cavalry brigade in France. Medina nodded casually to me, and Tom, whom I had not seen for years, made a great fuss.
‘Regimental dinner,’ he explained. ‘Came out for a moment to give instructions about my car. Been telling Medina here of the dirty trick the Government have played on my old crowd. I say it’s up to the few sahibs like him in that damned monkey-house at Westminster to make a row about it. You back me up, Hannay. What I say is…’ and so on with all the eternal iteration of ‘absolutely’ and ‘If you follow me’ and ‘You see what I mean’ of the incoherent British regular.
Medina gently disengaged himself. ‘Sorry, Tom, but I must be off now. You’re dining with Burminster on Thursday, aren’t you? We’ll talk about that business then. I agree it’s an infernal shame.’
He signed to me and we went together to the lift. On the first floor, where the main suites are, a turbaned Indian waited for us in the corridor. He led us into a little ante-room, and then disappeared through big folding-doors. I wondered what kind of swell this Oriental necromancer must be who could take rooms like these, for the last time I had been in them was when they were occupied by a Crown Prince who wanted to talk to me about a certain little problem in Anatolia.
‘You are about to see Kharáma,’ Medina whispered, and there was an odd exaltation in his voice. ‘You do not know his name, but there are millions in the East who reverence it like that of a god. I last saw him in a hut on the wildest pass in the Karakoram, and now he is in this gilded hotel with the dance-music of the West jigging below. It is a parable of the unity of all Power.’
The door was opened, and the servant beckoned us to enter. It was a large room furnished with the usual indifferent copies of French furniture – very hot and scented, just the kind of place where international financiers make their deals over liqueur brandy and big cigars, or itinerant stars of the cinema world receive their friends. Bright, hard, and glossy, you would have said that no vulgarer environment could be found… And yet after the first glance I did not feel its commonness, for it was filled with the personality of the man who sat on a couch at the far end. I realized that here was one who carried with him his own prepotent atmosphere, and who could transform his surroundings, whether it was a Pamir hut or a London restaurant.
To my surprise he was quite young. His hair was hidden by a great turban, but the face was smooth and hairless, and the figure, so far as I could judge, had not lost the grace of youth. I had imagined someone immensely venerable and old with a beard to his girdle, or, alternatively, an obese babu with a soft face like a eunuch. I had forgotten that this man was of the hills. To my amazement he wore ordinary evening dress, well-cut too, I thought, and over it a fine silk dressing-gown. He had his feet tucked up on the couch, but he did not sit cross-legged. At our entrance he slightly inclined his head, while we both bowed. Medina addressed him in some Indian tongue, and he replied, and his voice was like the purr of a big cat.
He motioned us to sit down, looking not so much at us as through us, and while Medina spoke I kept my eyes on his face. It was the thin, high-boned, high-bred face of the hillman; not the Mongolian type, but that other which is like an
Arab, the kind of thing you can see in Pathan troops. And yet, though it was as hard as flint and as fierce as Satan, there was a horrid feline softness in it, like that of a man who would never need to strike a blow in anger, since he could win his way otherwise. The brow was straight and heavy, such as I had always associated with mathematical talent, and broader than is common with Orientals. The eyes I could not see, for he kept them half shut, but there was something uncanny in the way they were chased in his head, with an odd slant the opposite from what you see in the Chinaman. His mouth had a lift at each corner as if he were perpetually sneering, and yet there was a hint of humour in the face, though it was as grave as a stone statue.
I have rarely seen a human being at once so handsome and so repulsive, but both beauty and horror were merged in the impression of ruthless power. I had been sceptical enough about this Eastern image, as I had been sceptical about Medina’s arts, because they had failed with me. But as I looked on that dark countenance I had a vision of a world of terrible knowledge, a hideousness like an evil smell, but a power like a blasting wind or a pestilence… Somehow Sandy’s talk at the Thursday Club dinner came back to me, about the real danger to the world lying in the constraint of spirit over spirit. The swarthy brute was the priest of that obscene domination, and I had an insane desire there and then to hammer him into pulp.
He was looking at me, and seemed to be asking a question to which Medina replied. I fancy he was told that I was a chela, or whatever was the right name, a well-broken and submissive disciple.
Then to my surprise he spoke in English – good English, with the chi-chi accent of the Indian.
‘You have followed far in the path of knowledge, brother. I did not think a son of the West could have travelled so far and so soon. You have won two of the three keys to Mastery, if you can make a man forget his past, and begin life anew subject to your will. But what of the third key?’
I thought Medina’s voice had a tinge of disappointment. ‘It is the third key which I look for, master. What good is it to wipe out the past and establish my control if it is only temporary? I want the third key, to lock the door, so that I have my prisoner safe for ever. Is there such a key?’
‘The key is there, but to find it is not easy. All control tends to grow weak and may be broken by an accident, except in the case of young children, and some women, and those of feeble mind.’
‘That I know,’ said Medina almost pettishly. ‘But I do not want to make disciples only of babes, idiots, and women.’
‘Only some women, I said. Among our women perhaps all, but among Western women, who are hard as men, only the softer and feebler.’
‘That is my trouble. I wish to control for ever, and to control without constant watching on my part. I have a busy life and time is precious. Tell me, master, is there a way?’
I listened to this conversation with feelings of genuine horror. Now I saw Medina’s plans, and I realized that he and he alone was at the bottom of the kidnapping. I realized, too, how he had dealt with the three hostages, and how he proposed to deal. Compared to him a murderer was innocent, for a murderer only took life, while he took the soul. I hated him and that dark scoundrel more intensely than I think I have ever hated man; indeed it was only by a great effort that I checked myself from clutching the two by the throat. The three stories, which had been half forgotten and overlaid by my recent experiences, returned sharp and clear to my memory. I saw again Victor’s haggard face, I heard Sir Arthur Warcliff’s voice break; and my wrath rose and choked me. This stealing of souls was the worst infamy ever devised by devils among mankind. I must have showed my emotion, but happily the two had no eyes for me.
‘There is a way, a sure way,’ the Indian was saying, and a wicked half-smile flitted over his face. ‘But it is a way which, though possible in my own country, may be difficult in yours. I am given to understand that your police are troublesome, and you have a public repute, which it is necessary to cherish. There is another way which is slower, but which is also sure, if it is boldly entered upon.’
The sage seemed to open his half-shut eyes, and I thought I saw the opaque brightness which comes from drug-taking.
‘Him whom you would make your slave,’ he said, ‘you first strip of memory, and then attune to your own will. To keep him attuned you must be with him often and reinforce the control. But this is burdensome, and if the slave be kept apart and seen rarely the influence will ebb – except, as I have said, in the case of a young child. There is a way to rivet the bondage and it is this. Take him or her whom you govern into the same life as they have been accustomed to live before, and there, among familiar things, assert your control. Your influence will thus acquire the sanction of familiarity – for though the conscious memory has gone, the unconscious remains – and presently will be as second nature.’
‘I see,’ said Medina abstractedly. ‘I had already guessed as much. Tell me, master, can the dominion, once it is established, be shaken off?’
‘It cannot, save by the will of him who exercises it. Only the master can release.’
After that they spoke again in the foreign tongue of I know not what devilry. It seemed to me that the sage was beginning to tire of the interview, for he rang a bell and when the servant appeared gave him some rapid instructions. Medina rose, and kissed the hand which was held out to him, and I, of course, followed suit.
‘You stay here long, master?’ he asked.
‘Two days. Then I have business in Paris and elsewhere. But I return in May, when I will summon you again. Prosper, brother. The God of Wisdom befriend you.’
We went downstairs to the dancing and the supper parties. The regimental dinner was breaking up and Tom Machin was holding forth in the hall to a knot of be-medalled friends. I had to say something to Medina to round off the evening, and the contrast of the two scenes seemed to give me a cue. As we were putting on our coats I observed that it was like coming from light to darkness. He approved. ‘Like falling from a real world into shadows,’ he said.
He evidently wished to follow his own thoughts, for he did not ask me to walk home with him. I, too, had a lot to think about. When I got back to the Club I found a note signed ‘Spion Kop’, and with an English postmark.
‘Meet me,’ it said, ‘on the 21st for breakfast at the inn called The Silent Woman on the Fosse Way as you go over from Colne to Windrush. I have a lot to tell you.’
I thanked Heaven that Sandy was home again, though he chose fantastic spots for his assignations. I, too, had something to say to him. For that evening had given me an insight into Medina’s mind, and, what was more, the glimmerings of a plan of my own.
CHAPTER TEN
Confidences at a Wayside Inn
My first impulse was to go to Macgillivray about this Kharáma fellow, who I was certain was up to mischief. I suspected him of some kind of political intrigue; otherwise what was he doing touring the capitals of Europe and putting up at expensive hotels? But on second thoughts I resolved to let the police alone. I could not explain about Kharáma without bringing in Medina, and I was determined to do nothing which would stir a breath of suspicion against him. But I got the chit from my doctor, recommending a week’s rest, and I went round to see Medina on the morning of the 19th. I told him I had been feeling pretty cheap for some days and that my doctor ordered me to go home and go to bed. He didn’t look pleased, so I showed him the doctor’s letter, and made a poor mouth, as if I hated the business but was torn between my inclinations and my duty. I think he liked my producing that chit, like a second-lieutenant asking for leave, anyhow he made the best of it and was quite sympathetic. ‘I’m sorry you’re going out of town,’ he said, ‘for I want you badly. But it’s as well to get quite fit, and to lie up for a week ought to put you all right. When am I to expect you back?’ I told him that without fail I would be in London on the 29th. ‘I’m going to disappear into a monastery,’ I said. ‘Write no letters, receive none, not at home to visitors, only sleep and eat. I can pr
omise you that my wife will watch me like a dragon.’
Then I hunted up Archie Roylance, whom I found on the very top of his form. He had seen Hansen, and discovered that on the island of Flacksholm, just off the mouth of the Merdalfjord, there was good landing. It was a big flattish island with a loch in the centre, and entirely uninhabited except for a farm at the south end. Archie had got a machine, a Sopwith, which he said he could trust, and I arranged with him to be at Flacksholm not later than the 27th, and to camp there as best he could. He was to keep watch by day for a motor-boat from the Merdalfjord, and at night if he saw a green light he was to make for it. I told him to take ample supplies, and he replied that he wasn’t such a fool as to neglect the commissariat. He said he had been to Fortnum & Mason and was going to load up with liqueurs and delicatessen. ‘Take all the clothes you’ve got, Dick,’ he added. ‘It will be perishing cold in those parts at this time of year.’ He arranged, too, to cable through Hansen for a motor-launch to be ready at Stavanger for a Mr Brand who was due by the Hull steamer on the morning of the 23rd. If I had to change my plans I was to wire him at once.
That evening I went down to Fosse a little easier in my mind. It was a blessed relief to get out of London and smell clean air, and to reflect that for a week at any rate I should be engaged in a more congenial job than loafing about town. I found Peter John in the best of health and the Manor garden a glory of spring flowers.