The vampire nemesis and other weird stories of the China coast Page 3

  He had a weak-looking, sensuous mouth, watery blue eyes, set very closely together, so closely, in fact, as to give the whole face a look of cunning when the vacuous expression was not predominant, and sandy hair. Stay, though. There was one peculiarity about the man which I fancy struck me in those early days of our acquaintanceship—it was obvious enough later. When he was excited or angry the hair from the back of his head to the nape of the neck used fairly to stand on end and bristle, as one sees the hair bristle on the neck of an angry cat. I can recollect remarking what a peculiarly weird appearance it had—a look that, striking some strange chord of sympathy in one's own mind, produced that eerie creeping of the scalp one experiences when in the austere presence of the unknown.

  There was a something repellant about the man's manner that prevented my ever desiring to become intimate with him, though I gathered from casual talks, when he was one of the group, that he had practised for a lengthy period in India, and had more than once come into contact with that mysterious sect, the Mahatma. It was admitted by all that he was deeply imbued with the lore of India, and among ourselves Rawdon was an acknowledged authority on all matters, ancient or modern, connected with that country of esoteric learning.

  It was rumoured by the idle gossips' tongues of Shanghai (this I learned later) that Arnold Rawdon was deeply in love with a fair maiden of the community, Miss Ethel Langarde. My own introduction to the lady was under unconventional and rather peculiar circumstances. I was riding in from Jessfield on my bicycle, when I passed her trudging along on foot, pushing her own machine before her. Judging from the rueful glances she from time to time cast upon her steed that something was amiss, I pulled up and inquired if I could be of any service to her. She looked up at me with a comical expression of despair in her frank blue eyes.

  " I am afraid my machine has refused duty. The pedal has come off."

  Leaving my own bike by the roadside, I stooped to inspect it. The thread of the pedal had stripped, and the nut was hanging loosely on the bolt.

  "I think," I assured her, "we can fix that up sufficiently well to take you into town."

  " Thanks very much," replied Miss Langarde, " but I am afraid the case is hopeless. We have already tried, my escort and I, but the horrid thing will keep coming off."

  She saw my look of inquiry bent on the road in search of the escort of whom she spoke, and hastened to add—

  "We gave up the attempt to make it behave itself, and he has ridden on to try and procure a rickshaw or gharry. It's too bad "—petulantly— "for that odious thing to break down in the middle of the journey like this! "

  " Let us see what can be done," I said.

  I am not an inapt mechanic, and managed, with a strip of tin from a match-box case I luckily had in my pocket, to jam the nut on in a manner sufficiently secure to make the machine safe to ride. And having thus put matters to rights, I could do no less than offer to supply the place of the missing escort, who, I devoutly hoped, would have to ride a long way ere finding a conveyance.

  " By the way," I remarked, when we were fairly started, "it's very shocking, I suppose, but we don't know each other, and there's no one to make the needful introductions."

  " How very dreadful!" she exclaimed, with a bright laugh that sent my front wheel wobbling violently, " I suppose, under the circumstances, we shall be justified in doing it for ourselves. My own name is Ethel Langarde."

  "And mine," I replied eagerly, "is Henry Keith."

  " So pleased to meet you," she murmured in her most formal tones, whereat we both laughed merrily, and before another twenty yards were covered we were the best of friends.

  "Take care, Miss Langarde," I cried presently, for the pace was becoming much too rapid for my liking. " I would not advise you to ride too fast, that pedal might come off again ! "

  But she saw through my little ruse to protract the pleasure of the ride, and a mischievous smile dimpled her cheeks.

  " Oh, I really think it would be perfectly safe to go a great deal faster !" she replied cheerfully. Nevertheless she slowed down to my pace, which was about as leisurely as I could make it without tumbling off my machine.

  And so we pedalled slowly toward the town, I lost in admiration of the dainty loveliness of the girl at my side, and fervently hoping that her companion had smashed his machine in a collision or any other dire mishap that would prevent his turning up before we reached Shanghai. We met him at last some little distance out, conveying a rickshaw, and great was his surprise to see Miss Langarde riding the disabled machine. Great was also my surprise, not unmixed with mortification, to find, as he approached, that the gentleman was none other than Arnold Rawdon.

  As he came up, Miss Langarde, slipping from her machine, prepared to make the necessary explanations and introduction.

  "See, Mr. Rawdon," she cried, with eyes brimming with roguishness, " the distressed damsel has already been succoured by a gallant knight. Permit me " Then, catching our looks of mutual recognition, " Ah ! but I see you already know each other. How jolly ! "

  Seeing there was no further excuse for intruding my company, I was about to raise my cap and turn away, when she interposed—

  " But surely Mr. Keith is not going to be so selfish as to ride away without giving us a chance of showing him our gratitude ? Mr. Rawdon," she turned imperiously towards him, " please persuade your friend to accompany us and accept a cup of tea."

  Rawdon's face was showing as much annoyance as such faces are capable of exhibiting, but he managed to mumble some polite phrase expressive of his wish that I should accompany them. As much to chastise his selfishness as for anything else, I readily conceded, and away we went again three abreast.

  " You see, Mr. Keith, my machine might break down again," Miss Langarde murmured demurely, at which remark reflecting on his usefulness as an escort, Rawdon's brow grew blacker yet.

  This was the beginning of a friendship that blossomed into intimacy and soon ripened into love. A little more than three months from that lucky day, Ethel and I were made man and wife, and it was only then I discovered that Rawdon had had aspirations toward the same goal. He seemed to take the matter so lightly that I felt almost angry with him for being willing to surrender so rich a prize thus easily. It was, I told myself indignantly, a slight on my wife. How could any man know Ethel and not be in love with her ?

  He declined to be present at the wedding reception —the whole affair was as quiet as we could make it, for when two people are really happy they do not like to proclaim it from the housetops—but he sent Ethel a magnificent collection of Cashmere shawls, which we understood had been accumulated during his lengthy sojourn in India. He declined with equal persistency to accept any of our invitations, always having some valid excuse, and so gradually Arnold Rawdon dropped out of our life.

  II.

  Of the major part of my career I need say little. They who have read the Shanghai papers of the last few weeks will have seen it blazoned forth again and again, with wearisome iteration, ever with the addition of some fictitious detail to excuse the repetition of the stale story. I will, therefore, go over the old ground no further than to say that until recently I held the position of sub-editor on that thriving daily, the Eastern Echo, with every prospect of ultimately fighting my way to the top of the journalistic ladder.

  Mental science had always been to me a topic of absorbing interest to which I had devoted all my spare time, following with avidity the abstruse speculations in both its branches, both the psychic and metaphysic. Though the transcendentalism of Descartes, Kant, and Reid had a great fascination for me, it was to mesmerism and the allied phenomena of hypnotism that I directed most of my researches. It was in the arduous pursuit of these that I came in contact with spiritualism before leaving home for the East, and in the sanguineness of youth dreamed that here was the medium by which the phenomena of mind were to be brought to the demonstrable level of the exact sciences. In this I was unfortunate, for in the attempt of its devotees to pick t
he lock of eternity and reveal matters behind the awful veil, my eyes were slowly, yet surely, opened to their rank charlatanism. Medium after medium was detected in the act of strumming surreptitious banjos or rapping on the table with would-be invisible fingers.

  The result was that with the rashness of young blood I held that the induction which applied so fittingly to spiritualism was equally true of mesmerism and hypnotism, by the %id of which they claimed to work wonders, and I angrily denounced the whole thing as a hollow fraud.

  In the revulsion of disgust, I resolved to devote my time to a science a little more positive, one at least in which I could study the resultant phenomena of the mind's action without being basely cheated by blatant charlatanism, so I turned my attention with renewed zeal to the sister branch—metaphysics.

  Here at least I was not unsuccessful in my investigations, and may claim, as the issue of my speculations on mind as related to matter, the authorship of two or three treatises, which the schools have been pleased to look upon with approval, while lauding their depth of research and perspicuity.

  It was shortly after the issue of the last pamphlet

  that I left London for Shanghai, to take up my duties on the staff of the journal from which I have been so lately torn.

  But I still retained my interest in metaphysics, reading eagerly every fresh book that appeared to cast a new light on this most elusive of subjects. With hypnotism I, however, declined to have anything more to do. My awakening from the dreams of the supernatural had been thorough and complete, and I was resolved never again to allow myself to be duped by specious appearances, however plausible.

  In justice to myself, I must add that I was not unwilling to admit a certain modicum of truth in the experiments of Mesmer and Braid. I still believed it possible to throw the human mind into a mesmeric sleep by keeping the eye strained on a black wafer stuck on a blank white wall. But I emphatically denied all psychic influence, explaining the phenomenon by the theory of the mind being thrown into a state of morbid activity through the abnormal strain on the attention and the reflex action of an excited imagination.

  The next time I met Rawdon was out at the race-course. Ethel and I had been to see the review of the volunteers. After it was over, and the people began to move from their seats in the direction of Nankin Road, she slipped away for a moment to speak to a friend whom she had spied among the crowd, begging me to sit still till she came back. I was idly watching the coolies gathering the pennons that were stuck about the field, when someone, squeezing his way between the benches in front of me, trod heavily on my toe. As he turned to apologise, I recognized Rawdon.

  I saw him glance swiftly round as though in search of someone, and it needed no intuition to know he was looking for Ethel.

  " She is over there," I said in answer to his glance. " Sit down."

  He dropped into the vacant chair beside me and made a few commonplace remarks on the review, while the people filed out in front of me, asking carelessly, " How is Mrs. Keith ? "

  "Very well, thanks—I might say exceedingly well, in both mind and body."

  I could not help letting a small note of triumph creep into my tones, but Rawdon seemed not to notice it, or at least he ignored it.

  " Pray give her my kind regards," he said absently, as though about to rise.

  " Don't go away yet," I pleaded with a malicious grin, stung by his apparent indifference. " Ethel will be back in a moment, and 1 'm sure she'll be awfully pleased to see such an old friend."

  He swung round on me then, a curious light in his shifty blue eyes.

  " Keith ! " he said with suppressed vehemence, "you shall both suffer for this!"

  I was more amused than angry, as I inquired in mild surprise—

  " Suffer for what, my dear fellow ? "

  He had suppressed the flash of feeling he had shown, which I regretted, as he sneered—

  " You are exceedingly dense if you require me to recapitulate the insult you two put upon me! "

  " Insult !" I scoffed. " What a very curious view you take of it, Rawdon! "

  " You will take a very serious view of it!" he retorted significantly.

  I could not help smiling at his vagaries.

  " My dear man ! " I said impatiently, " spare me your idle threats. What is it ? Immolation at the stake ? or perhaps chains and the stool of repentance in your castle dungeon ? What a pity it is," I mused, " that Shanghai can boast of no bastille!"

  But he remained unmoved by my levity.

  " Nevertheless, you shall both pay dearly for that day's work," he repeated as he rose and sauntered away.

  I could not resist flinging back one taunt more ere he got out of earshot—

  " You had your chance, and failed to capture the prize. Your fault, my son, or—your misfortune !"

  I did not tell Ethel anything of this when she returned. I knew her generous soul enough to be sure she would worry herself and claim the blame for having allowed Rawdon to think too much of her, though I know that she never gave him a scrap of encouragement.

  III.

  Arnold Rawdon and his puerile threats of vague retribution passed quickly from my thoughts, or lingered but as a hazy memory of a humorous interview. I saw nothing more of him, except perhaps the passing glimpses that in a place like Shanghai are inevitable, for seven months; then we were once more thrown together at a social gathering at the house of a mutual friend in Range Road.

  There was a fairly large assembly, composed cheifly of young people, and I was anxious to avoid cause for a display of ill-humour on his part. I was agreeably astonished, therefore, to find that, in place of the morose taciturnity I expected, Rawdon greeted me affably, calmly ignoring the fact that we had parted last—on his side at least—in anger.

  In my relief at the prospect of the evening's harmony remaining undisturbed, I felt almost inclined to venture on a gentle gibe on the nature of the dreadful revenge he had wreaked upon us. Fortunately I restrained the impulse.

  For a wonder, I had come alone. Ethel had been indisposed, and refused to hear of my remaining to keep her company. It was more to please her—for she was reproaching herself—that I came at all.

  There was the usual questionable playing and the usual unquestionably bad singing, which no one wanted to hear and all were reluctant to do, but which for some occult reason everyone joined in soliciting each of the others to perform.

  Then we settled down to idle chatter; but the younger members of the party soon began to grow restless with the exuberance of youth. So games were proposed as an outlet for redundant spirits, but here age again was against them; most were at that transitional period of existence when parlour games are looked upon as "kiddish," and more staid forms of amusement have not yet begun to attract. At last, in a moment of happy inspiration, somebody proposed that we should try the good old experiment of making the table revolve by the force of animal magnetism. The sceptical were lured forward by the assurance that they (the narrators) had seen it done " dozens of times."

  " Simplest thing in the world," explained one young lady enthusiastically. " You only have to join hands on the table and think hard."

  " Oh, I say! " exclaimed a young man opposite.

  " No, Mr. Moore, I did not say join hands under the table," flashed the girl in answer to his estatic look, " I said on the table."

  The young man's face fell and he appeared to be losing in the discussion.

  " I don't think it is very good to think hard," announced a callow youth ; "ruins one's digestion."

  " You certainly ought to enjoy good health, Mr. Weir!" retorted the same damsel with a merry glance at his pasty face.

  She was the life of the party, that girl, and presently by sheer dint of coaxing and over-ruling all objections she had us gathered round a fairsized table, like so many sheep garnered into the fold.

  To heighten the effect and aid the required concentration of thought the lights were turned low, and we all sat with our hands on the circumfere
nce of the table, little fingers and thumbs in contact, and thought very hard of ghosts and graveyards, or' surreptitiously squeezed the finger of the girl next to us, to a running accompaniment of little squeals and half-suppressed giggles. Then, as the table still remained solid and immobile, one of us elder ones suddenly lifted his hands, thus destroying the circuit, and pronounced the effort a failure. While the supporters of the scheme were reproaching us with not having thought hard enough or with giggling just as the table began to move, Arnold Rawdon, who I noticed had taken his place at the table with a quiet smile that was half a sneer, asked, " Has anybody ever seen hypnotism ? "

  "Yes," said a youngster wearily, "saw it at home. Professor Kennedy did lots of funny tilings—put the 'fluence on a man an' made him drink kerosene for fizz."

  " Why, can you hypnotise ? " asked a lady with breathless interest.

  " I don't believe I have quite lost the power," answered Rawdon.

  There was a little " oh ! " of pleasurable surprise from more than one of the more impressionable ones, while he continued, " I don't know if anyone will consent to be put off."

  I was leaning my back against the mantelpiece listening to this nonsense with a half-disdainful smile, and now a sudden idea seized me. I would make Mr. Arnold Rawdon look small in the eyes of the company by a failure. He might succeed in mesmerizing some young girl of nervous temperament and put her to sleep. But hypnotism ! pooh ! had I not had experience of this sort of thing before? Obsession? Idiotic word. At least there should be no danger of collusion. I myself would volunteer to be the subject. I had it all mapped out so neatly. I would pretend to go off with prompt obedience, and then, when he turned to assure the company that I was under the influence, I would open one eye and laugh at him. It never for a moment struck me as possible for a well-balanced mind to be " put off" unwillingly ; so I said with a short laugh—