CHAPTER XIII
“Agar Halfi, I’ve lost that photograph of the footprints!”
A surprised look entered the Hindoo’s eyes as he gazed at the Master of Storton, who was leaning easily against the mantelpiece of the breakfast-room.
“It may be awkward, Sahib, if some people find it.”
Brentwood smiled.
“The worst of it is, I have lost it outside somewhere. I had it in the pocket of my shooting jacket on the morning I first went to the priory, and it is not there now. I know for certain that I did not take it out when I returned home.”
“You have the original, Sahib.”
“True; but what I am concerned about is, that whoever happens to find it may take it to the police, who, you will remember, took great care to have copied exact impressions of the footmarks that were found beside the body of the Rev. Henry Thornton, and, as we only too well know, they are the same!”
“If anyone had found it, you would most probably have heard something before now.”
“That seems reasonable enough. Still, I wish I had it safely here.”
He stood thinking for a time, and then, dismissing the matter from his mind for a moment, said:
“I expect, like me, you have been wondering how this evil thing got over here?”
The Hindoo folded his arms and shook his head solemnly.
“What concerns me more,” he replied, “is that we do not know how to cope with it.”
“I’m afraid it baffles me,” returned Brentwood. “Has it, then, exhausted all your powers?”
“No, Sahib, I cannot say that, because a man does not know the limit of his power until it is really tested. But up to the present it has mystified me.”
“It does not appear to correspond in principle to anything we have met,” said Brentwood meditatively.
“If I speak my mind, Sahib, I feel that this evil thing is impervious to any attack by man from the physical plane.”
The Master of Storton looked at him thoughtfully, as he replied:
“If that is true, Agar Halfi, then there is only one possible way to deal with it, at least to our knowledge, and that is——”
“With an almost certain risk of death,” interrupted the other.
Brentwood nodded slowly, then remarked:
“Well, we shall see. Now, to go back to my original question. Why should it be here where we are? Remember that, so far as we know, you and I are the only two people in England who have met with it. Has it followed us?”
“I do not know about that, Sahib. It is five years and more since we encountered the hobgoblin in Afghanistan, and surely if it has followed us, why did it not do so immediately?”
“That argument seems reasonable enough, my friend, but it does not necessarily follow that it is right.”
“Your Western theory of astronomy is accepted because it is the most reasonable, but it does not necessarily follow that it is right.”
Brentwood laughed outright, and then replied:
“I don’t think your analogy is quite right, Agar Halfi. The alternative to your argument is not a very feasible one, whereas in my case it is quite a probable one. The thing may have followed us here directly we came!”
“Then why has it not manifested before?” returned the Oriental quickly.
“That, of course, is the natural answer to my remark,” replied Brentwood, “and it constitutes the doubtful point in my theory. However, we shall see how things develop.”
Having spoken, the Master of Storton looked down at the curb, and started kicking it with the toe of his boot. At length he remarked:
“Agar Halfi, why don’t you go back to India and found a school of your own? You know very well that you have control of a force which, so far as you are aware, no one else but myself possesses, and yet you are content to stay here, masquerading as the chauffeur of a well-to-do Englishman.”
“If you wish your servant to depart, he will do so, Sahib, but otherwise he is satisfied to stay here for the present.”
“Don’t misunderstand me,” returned Brentwood quickly. “So long as you want to stay with me, you know you can; I am honoured by your presence, and I do not wish to inquire into your reasons for so doing. But life is short, at least on this plane, and I sometimes feel that you are wasting valuable time.”
“There are certain things which I have got to do,” he answered slowly. “When they are accomplished, perhaps I shall go back to my own country. But for the time, Sahib, I will stay with you.”
“That is entirely for you to decide,” replied Brentwood. “You know my mind on the matter.”
“For one thing,” went on Agar Halfi, “you are my friend, and I wish to be near you. A man is not dishonoured because he serves those he loves. Far better to be a man’s lacquey than eat the bread of idleness in his house.”
The Master of Storton’s face softened as his companion spoke, and there was a warm ring in his voice as he said:
“Your high devotion belittles me; it is greater than any white man’s that I know. Though you are the only one, I am rich in friends.”
There was an awkward pause, neither man having anything to say. At length Brentwood broke the silence by asking abruptly, “What do you make of this?” whereupon he produced a letter, and handed it to the Hindoo.
Agar Halfi read it with an expressionless face.
“The Vicarage,
Worlstoke, Somerset,
May 19—.“Dear Brentwood,—You will no doubt be surprised to hear that Hector arrived here to-night about 7 o’clock, and, in spite of all efforts to the contrary, will not leave my sister! No doubt you will be relieved to hear where he is, and perhaps you will send for him in the morning.
“Yours sincerely,
“Philip Alletson.”
“I will fetch him, Sahib.”
“Yes, but what do you think about it?”
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“One thing,” continued Brentwood—“I noticed that he seemed to take a great fancy to Miss Alletson the first time they met; but beyond that I fail to understand the animal’s action.”
“Dogs are particularly susceptible to mental and psychic influences,” returned the Oriental, “and probably something in the lady attracts the dog to her. It is doubtful if it could have any bearing on the mystery.”
“Perhaps not, but still it will be as well to note what takes place in the future. You see more of the dog than I do, so perhaps you will watch him.”
“Very good, Sahib, and now I will go and fetch him.” Saying which, he saluted in soldier fashion, and, turning on his heel, went through the doorway.
The Master of Storton followed him with his eyes as he went out, and there was a strange smile on his face as he remarked half aloud:
“Probably the most highly developed mind I have ever met, and undoubtedly the truest man.”
As Agar Halfi strode along the road to the Vicarage, his mind was full of ominous forebodings. He felt depressed, and his Oriental intelligence, which interpreted things in a different way to a European’s, warned him that trouble was not far away. He had read it in the stars, could detect it in the aura around him, and, indeed, he knew from his master’s horoscope that a dangerous period was at hand. Probably it was for that reason he was not going back to India just yet. In any case, he did not mean to leave his beloved friend at a time when trouble was looming.
It was not for nothing that the evil death which he had once faced in Afghanistan had come to the neighbourhood of Storton. In some way he gathered that it must have some connection with what happened to them five years ago, and until the mystery was cleared up he would remain.
But how were they going to encounter it with success? Ah, that was another matter, for, deeply as he was learned in mystic law, he felt that he was powerless to overcome this horror at present.
If it had been a vampire, a werewolf, or any other evil thing that emanated from the malignant rays of the planet Saturn, he could have dealt with it, for his knowledge held the key to the forces which sprung from that great sphere to plague humanity. If it had been an elemental, or any evil from the astral plane, governed by the planet Uranus, he might have hoped to cope with it; but the fire charm he had wrought that night, five years ago, had not availed, except to ward off death. And such a charm as he had fashioned was, as he knew, sufficient to neutralise any astral evil.
Deep down in his mind, he was conscious that this weird thing was a psychic manifestation, under the rule of the adverse rays of Neptune, the forces from which star were now slowly beginning to become active in the affairs of humanity. Little was known of the power of its rays, except that the results were evil, and, although the occultists were studying it closely, so slow was its progress through the heavens, that years must elapse before its effects could be understood to any apparent degree, let alone mastered.
For that matter, it was doubtful if there were a dozen men who held the key to the planet Uranus and the astral plane! So what could he, a simple seeker after truth in the mystic arcana, hope to accomplish against the forces of the unknown psychic plane? It were doubtful if the powers of a Mahatma would avail.
And yet, as he walked quickly along, this strange man resolved that he would combat this dread thing, though he knew it would be at the risk of his life. And the unselfish reason that caused this resolution was—
Well, that is Agar Halfi’s secret for the present.
In the meantime, he had reached the Vicarage. To his enquiry for the Vicar, Martha said that the master was out, but that Miss Alletson would be pleased to see him. The maid showed him into the drawing-room, and her eyes never left his face once. Besides the fact that the Hindoo was a curiosity to be stared at, the presence of this dark-skinned man fascinated Martha, and for a space she stood looking at him as though glued to the carpet, probably wondering whether he was an ogre, who would eat her. All sorts of fearful things flitted through her rustic mind. Visions of knives, pistols, and implements of torture. Meanwhile, Agar Halfi, who had taken a seat, turned his eye toward her, as she stood in the doorway. That settled Martha; suppressing a shriek, she turned and fled. And, as she confided to her best friend the next time she saw her, “he must be a dreadful man, his eyes looked through and through me, and I’m sure he knew all that I was thinking about.”
Constance entered the room just after, and greeted her visitor with a pleasant smile, though her pale cheeks and hollow eyes bore evidence of the strain she had experienced the previous evening.
On her heels followed Hector, who no sooner saw the Hindoo than he stood stock-still and looked at him dejectedly, as though uncertain what to do, while his tail traversed a descending arc.
Agar Halfi considered him for a moment grimly, then in his deep voice he exclaimed, “Come here!”
With a spiritless look, the dog went over to him and lay down.
Constance could not help laughing as she remembered her brother’s futile efforts to turn him out the night before, and compared them with the simple victory that Agar Halfi had achieved.
“Until you came, he simply would not leave me, and last night he lay on the mat outside my bedroom door.”
“And what do you think about his behaviour?” asked the Hindoo in his grave way.
Constance, who had dropped into a chair, was talking quite easily to her visitor, whom she naturally treated as her equal. Further, she felt quite comfortable, and sub-consciously noticed that there was not present any of that instinctive reserve which intuitively a woman is aware of when talking to a man who is practically a stranger.
A smile parted her lips, showing her excellent teeth, as she replied:
“That is the very question I was going to put to you. Still, as you have anticipated my inquiry, it is only fair that I should answer first. Frankly, I cannot dismiss the matter from my mind as a mere trifle. There must be some reason for the dog’s conduct. When first we met, he seemed to take an extraordinary liking to me, but I can hardly think that that would be the cause.”
“It rather points to it, Miss Alletson.”
“Can you suggest any other reason?”
“No,” he replied, “I cannot, yet I do not think that what you have intimated will explain the dog’s strange behaviour.”
“Is not that what is called ‘woman’s logic’?” she queried, with a sparkle in her eyes.
Agar Halfi looked steadily at her as he answered:
“I submit to the rebuke contained in your remark, Miss Alletson—we men deserve it. But, if I may say so without arrogance, I would answer that I know emphatically there is another reason for the animal coming to you, but what it is I am at present quite ignorant. Some day I may be able to tell you.”
She looked at him in genuine surprise.
“Do you know, that what we called an educated white man would blush to make such a statement, Mr. Agar Halfi? He would at once think it an insult to his reason.”
“And yet you don’t think so!” interjected the Hindoo.
“How do you know that?” she asked sharply.
“Simply because the faculty of intuition by which I was enabled to make the statement is one which is well developed in most women, but in few men. The general life of a woman tends to its growth, whereas men depend almost solely upon reason, and thereby lose much that they might otherwise know.
It is usually by the combination of these two faculties that genius is produced; and the rareness of genius is probably caused by the fact that reason and intuition cannot dwell together in what is called the average mind, as they appear to contradict each other, though in reality they are true affinities.”
“I have never heard anyone speak as you have spoken, Mr. Agar Halfi, though in a dim sort of way I have had similar ideas; but until your lucid explanation it has not been clear to me. Yes, I think I entirely agree with what you say. Now, why don’t women develop the faculty of reason?”
“They are doing so slowly, in the same way that men are developing the faculty of intuition. The difference is that in the former case, the lack of growth is due to centuries of suppression, and not until men realise that they must give women their freedom will the growth of reason fully develop. But before that time comes, women will no doubt have wrested themselves free from their chains by their own efforts. On the other hand, the growth of intuition in men is to some extent retarded by the fact that they do not think women capable of teaching them anything worth knowing, and yet it is only by the freedom of women from men’s yoke that men can reach their own full development. They have clung too much to the physical, and practically ignored all else.”
Constance sat in silent wonder, listening to this strange man discourse on topics in a manner which she thought would put to shame many of the so-called educated units of her own country, and she could not understand how it was that he should be merely a servant in an Englishman’s household. Still, that was not her business, and, after all, what did it matter whether a man was a servant or a master, so long as he was a man? But that mystified her; a man with such a personality and of such intelligence, should not need to be a servant. She did not understand that economic conditions of life brought about queer results.
While she sat thinking, the Hindoo was studying her face. At last he remarked:
“You are not in the best of health, Miss Alletson; have you had a shock?”
She started slightly as he correctly diagnosed the cause of her indisposition.
“Well,” she answered, a little confused, “I was rather upset last night, but I feel better now—” She almost added, “since you came in,” but checked herself in time.
As if he understood, Agar Halfi replied simply:
“You will feel better this afternoon!”
“I expect I shall naturally,” she answered, with a suspicion of a smile.
“I do not mean that, lady. I say that practically all traces of your indisposition will have vanished before three o’clock.”
“Indeed!” she queried.
But the Hindoo did not satisfy her by responding to her question.
Suddenly, she did not know why, and had not had the least intention of doing so, she found herself relating to her visitor a dream she experienced the previous evening.
“I do not know at all how it came about, Mr. Agar Halfi, but suddenly I seemed to stand in a wild rocky region in a strange land, and there before me, standing with outstretched hands, was a man of your own country. His dress was similar to that of a priest, and he looked at me with a stern expression of warning. In his left hand he held the number 15, and in his right hand a cross. I suppose he meant to convey something to me, but I do not understand symbols. Do you know anything about them? Somehow I feel that you do.”
While she spoke, the Hindoo’s countenance grew graver, and she noted with alarm that he seemed perturbed.
“Why did you tell me this?” he asked in an unnatural voice.
“Really,” she replied, a little distressed, “I could not say; it seemed to come from me involuntarily. Is it anything serious?”
“Yes, it is serious, Miss Alletson, but please do not be disturbed at what I am going to say. I will interpret your dream. A fortnight before the disappearance of Mr. Thornton, your brother’s predecessor, I had a very similar dream, the only difference being that instead of the man holding in his left hand the number 15, he held a chart of the heavens, and in his right hand the number 13 instead of the cross.”
She looked at him incredulously.
“Can it be possible?”
He smiled, and answered:
“I will describe the man. He was tall and gaunt with a long grey beard, and his garments hung loosely over him, leaving his arms almost bare.”
“That is almost exactly the same,” she said excitedly. “Now what can these dreams mean?”
“I will interpret them,” he answered slowly.
“The vision was of a holy man, who went forth to exorcise, and was killed by an evil similar to that which is now present in this district.”
Constance felt a cold shiver pass over her.
“Now in my dream,” continued the Hindoo, “the chart he held in his left hand meant the horoscope of Fate, that which is to be. The number 13 in his right hand is the symbol of death. Roughly speaking, Mr. Thornton was killed thirteen days after I had that vision. In your dream the number 15 in his left hand is the symbol of the devil, or evil. The cross in the right hand means that the evil can be overcome by that means.”
Constance trembled in spite of her brave efforts not to do so, and her lips were dry and white as she said almost in a whisper, “I always wear a gold cross,” and she held it up in her fingers for him to see. It was fastened by a chain of the same material, which hung round her neck.
“Never let it leave your body,” he said warningly. “It is more potent than many people think.”
“And so these two dreams appear to be connected with the tragedy?”
“Yes, there does not seem to be much doubt about that,” he returned.
“Don’t you think we ought to meet and talk things over?” she asked.
“I will put it to the Sahib when I return, Miss Alletson.”
“Quite so,” she retorted; “but I want your own opinion as well.”
“I do not know, Miss Alletson,” he said gravely. “I am not certain how things will turn out. Really, I must be going; I did not know it was so late.”
Constance looked at the clock and exclaimed: “Oh! how time flies. Philip will be in to lunch any minute now. Won’t you stay and have some with us?”
“I feel honoured by your request, Miss Alletson, but unfortunately it is quite impossible for me to stay.”
“Well, another time I shall not take a refusal, Mr. Agar Halfi,” she said with a bright laugh.
Calling Hector to him, the Hindoo took his departure, with apologies for keeping his hostess such a long period.
“Oh, that is just my fault,” she answered. “I was so absorbed in what we were talking about, that I forgot the time.”
Agar Halfi had barely gone five minutes before Philip walked in, and his first words to Constance were:
“Why, you look ever so much better than you did when I went out this morning.”
“Yes,” she retorted. “If a flushed face through hurrying, and eyes made bright with excitement go for anything. But seriously, Philip, I do feel much better, and strangely the change came when Mr. Agar Halfi called for Hector.”
“Oh! Then that animal has gone at last?”
“Yes; but come and have lunch, I am sure you must be hungry, and I have a lot to tell you.”
While they ate she related what had happened during the morning, and she seemed so very interested, that Philip wondered for a moment whether the Hindoo could possibly have influenced her. But he discarded the idea almost immediately, he knew his sister too well.
“It is rather strange that Brentwood should not have mentioned the coincidence of the footprints before this,” he remarked coldly, when she had finished. “It is a week since we found poor Thornton’s body.”
“That is what I cannot understand,” she answered.
“It looks rather as if he did not intend to tell us, and perhaps—very probably, his man has made a faux pas in mentioning the matter?”
“Do you really think, Philip, that Mr. Brentwood is guilty in any way?”
Philip looked at her steadily as he replied:
“Honestly, I don’t. I cannot think such a man would be capable of such a crime. What is your opinion—the same as mine?”
“No!” Alletson stared, while Constance resolutely looked at the tablecloth.
“What!” he exclaimed.
She lifted some crumbs from the cloth on to her plate with a knife, then raising her eyes and looking straight at her brother, she answered firmly:
“I fully believe that he is guilty!”
“You believe——!”
“Yes, Philip, and I will tell you why.”
She then related in detail what occurred during the experiment at the Manor. Her brother listened rather impatiently. He was hurt to think that his sister should have withheld anything from him.
“And is that what you were going to tell Mr. Shepperton and me last night?”
“Yes, Philip, but I could not. Some power compelled me to keep silent. I knew that something strange and uncanny was in the room, close by me, and I could not command my voice.”
“But how does this make Brentwood guilty, Constance?”
“Can’t you see, Philip? Don’t you understand? That feeling of horror I suffered and that dreadful something I felt at first compelled to find behind the man’s eyes, and which afterwards I knew was seeking me, is this evil which has killed Mr. Thornton, and no doubt Elsie Hobson. To be blunt, it is Mr. Brentwood, it is he who is the evil.”
She spoke with such vehemence that her brother sat staring at her dumbfounded for fully a minute after she had finished. Then as it dawned upon him what she meant, he gave vent to a short bitter laugh. To think that she, his sister, should appear to be so fully convinced of his friend’s guilt, when in his own mind he had no doubt about his innocence, was irony.
Suddenly he looked at her intently, and said in a low voice:
“And last night when you went to the window?”
“Yes, I was looking toward the ruins!”
“And—and when you put your hands to your ears?”
Her voice trembled as she answered:
“It was to shut out that awful alluring call, which seemed to be for me alone.”
The Vicar felt a shiver pass down his back, as he called to mind his own experience.
“And the dog?”
Constance shook her head. “I don’t understand that at all.”
For some time neither spoke a word. What they had been discussing seemed even there, in that cheerful room in broad daylight, to have the power to cast a shadow over their spirits.
At length Philip asked gently:
“Why did you not tell me at the time what you suffered during that experiment?”
“Well, Philip, partly because I did not want to hurt you in any way, unless I was quite sure that there was something wrong, and indeed I would not, even in my mind, think ill of any one without sufficient cause. But now I feel no doubt of it.”
He nodded spiritlessly, in agreement with what she had said, then remarked:
“And partly what else?”
She turned her head away, and commenced toying with her fingers, and he saw that she was trembling just a little.
“Really, Philip, I’m afraid I don’t know. But there was something else, which I cannot understand.”
He looked at her uneasily, not knowing what to think. Her attitude was so unlike her real self; she was usually so frank and brave. Now she seemed all to pieces, and unnerved.
“Surely it was not because you were afraid to speak, my dear girl?” he asked kindly.
“Oh no,” she returned quickly; “you know I’m not like that.”
“Then was it—” he stopped abruptly, for, with what sounded very much like a sob, Constance had risen swiftly and left the room.
The Vicar fell back in his chair perplexed, amazed, and for the second time that week he forgot himself, and exclaimed:
“Good Lord!”