CHAPTER XXI
HOW THEY ALL WENT TO THE HOUSE IN REGENT'S PARK
The little door in the wall of Sir William Gouldesbrough's old Georgian house stood wide open. Carriages were driving up, and the butler was constantly ushering visitors into the vast sombre hall, while a footman kept escorting this or that arrival up the gravel path among the laurel bushes.
It was afternoon, a dull and livid afternoon. Clouds had come down too near to London, and thunder lurked behind them. Never at any time a cheerful place, the old walled house of the scientist to-day wore its most depressing aspect.
The well-known people, who were invited to the demonstration of a stupendous and revolutionary discovery, looked with ill-concealed curiosity at the house, the garden, and the gloomy dignity of the hall.
There has always been a great deal of surmise and curiosity about Sir William's home and private life. That so distinguished a man was a bachelor was in itself an anomaly; and, though Gouldesbrough went continually into society, when he himself entertained it was generally at restaurants, except in very rare instances. So the world of London had come to regard the house in Regent's Park as a sort of wizard's cave, a secret and mysterious place where the modern magician evolved wonders which were to change the whole course of modern life.
About forty people had been invited to the demonstration.
Lord Malvin was there, of course. He came in company with Donald Megbie and Sir Harold Oliver.
All three men seemed singularly grave and preoccupied, and, as the other guests noted the strange, and even stern, expression upon Lord Malvin's face, they whispered that the leader of the scientific world felt that on this day he was to be deposed and must resign his captaincy for ever.
But in this case, as it generally is, gossip was at fault. Nobody knew of the strange conference which had been held by Donald Megbie with Lord Malvin and Sir Harold Oliver. Nobody knew how Miss Marjorie Poole had driven up to Lord Malvin's house in Portland Place one afternoon with Donald Megbie. Nobody would have believed, even if they had been told, how the two grave scientists (who realized that, however many truths are discovered, there still lie hidden forces which we shall never understand this side of the Veil) had listened to the extraordinary story the journalist and the society girl had to tell.
Therefore, on this important afternoon, though Lord Malvin's seriousness was commented upon, it was entirely misunderstood.
Various other scientists from France, Germany and America were present.
Donald Megbie, the editor of the _Eastminster Gazette_, and a famous novelist represented the press and the literary world.
The Bishop of West London, frail, alert, his grey eyes filled with eagerness, was one of the guests. Dean Weare came with him, and the political world had sent three ambassadors in the persons of Mr. Decies, the Home Secretary, Sir James Clouston and Sir William Ellrington. There was an academician who looked like a jockey, and a judge who looked like a trainer. The rest of the guests were all well-known people, who, if they were not particularly interested in science, were yet just the people who could not be ignored on an important occasion. That is to say, they belonged to that little coterie of men and women in London who have no other _metier_ than to be present at functions of extreme importance! For no particular reason they have become fixtures, and their personalities are entirely merged in the unearned celebrity of their name and the apparent necessity for their presence.
The men in their black frock coats passed over the great galleried hall like ghosts, and the white furs of the ladies, and the grey plumes and feathers of their hats, did little to relieve the general note of sadness, or to bring any colour into Sir William Gouldesbrough's house.
Among the last arrivals of all were Lady Poole and her daughter.
The guests had congregated in the hall where servants were handing about tea, and where two great fires warmed the air indeed, but could not destroy the sense of mental chill.
Sir William had not yet made his appearance, and it was understood that when the party was complete the butler was to lead them straight to the laboratories. The fact marked the seriousness of the occasion.
This was no social party, no scientific picnic, at which one went to see things which would interest and amuse, and to chatter, just as one chatters at an exhibition of water-colours in Pall Mall. Everybody felt this, everybody knew it, and everybody experienced a sense of awe and gravity as befitted people who were about to witness something which would mark an epoch in the history of the world and change the whole course of human life.
As Marjorie Poole came into the hall with her mother, every one saw that she looked ill. Her face was pale, there were dark rings under her eyes; and, as she stepped over the threshold of the door, one or two people noticed that she shivered. It was remarked also, that directly the two ladies entered, Lord Malvin, Sir Harold Oliver, and Mr. Megbie went up to them in a marked manner, and seemed to constitute themselves as a sort of bodyguard for the rest of the stay in the hall.
"She does not look much like a girl who is engaged to the most successful man of the day, does she?" Mrs. Hoskin-Heath said to Lord Landsend.
"No, you are right," Lord Landsend whispered. "She is afraid Sir William's machine won't work, and that the whole thing won't come off, don't you know. And, for my part, though I don't profess to understand exactly what Sir William is going to show us, I bet a fiver that it is not more wonderful than things I have seen scores of times at Maskelyne and Cook's. Wonderful place that, Mrs. Hoskin-Heath. I often go there on a dull afternoon; it makes one's flesh creep, 'pon my word it does. I have been there about fifty times, and I have never yet felt safe from the disappearing egg."
The butler was seen to come up to Lord Malvin and ask him a question.
The peer looked round, and seemed to see that every one was prepared to move. He nodded to the man, who crossed the hall, bowed, and opened a door to the right of the great central staircase.
"My master tells me to say, my lord," he said, addressing Lord Malvin, but including the whole of the company in his gaze--"my master tells me to say that he will be very much obliged if you will come into the laboratory."
A footman went up to the door and held it open, while the butler, with a backward look, disappeared into the passage, and led the way towards the real scene of the afternoon's events.
As that throng of famous people walked down the long corridor, which led past the study door, not a single one of them knew or could surmise that all and severally they were about to experience the emotion of their lives.
CHAPTER XXII
THE DOOM BEGINS
The visitors found themselves in the laboratory, a large building lit by means of its glass roof.
Sir William Gouldesbrough, dressed in a grey morning suit, received them. He shook hands with one or two, and bowed to the rest; but there was no regular greeting of each person who came in.
At one side of the laboratory were three long rows of arm-chairs, built up in three tiers on platforms, much in the same way as the seats are arranged for hospital students in an operating theatre.
The guests were invited to take their places, and in a minute or two had settled themselves, the more frivolous and non-scientific part of them whispering and laughing together, as people do before the curtain rises at a play. This is what they saw.
About two yards away from the lowest row of seats, which was practically on the floor level, the actual apparatus of the discovery began. Upon specially constructed tables, on steel supports, which rose through the boarding of the floor, were a series of machines standing almost the whole length of the room.
Upon the opposite wall to the spectators was a large screen, upon which the Thought Pictures were to be thrown.
Save for the strange apparatus in all its intricacy of brass and vulcanite, coiled wire and glass, there was more than a suggestion of the school-room in which the pupils are entertained by a magic-lantern exhibition.
Marjorie Poole and her mother sat next to Lord Malvin, on either side of him, while Donald Megbie, Sir Harold Oliver, and the Bishop of West London were immediately to their right and left.
Gouldesbrough had not formally greeted Marjorie, but as he stood behind his apparatus ready to begin the demonstration, he flashed one bright look at her full of triumph and exultation. Megbie, who was watching very closely, saw that the girl's face did not change or soften, even at this supreme moment, when the unutterable triumph of the man who loved her was about to be demonstrated to the world.
Amid a scene of considerable excitement on the part of the non-scientific of the audience, and the strained tense attention of the famous scientists, Sir William Gouldesbrough began.
"My Lord, my illustrious _confreres_, ladies and gentlemen, I have to thank you very much for all coming here this afternoon to see the law which I have discovered actually applied by means of mechanical processes, which have been adapted, invented and made by myself and my brilliant partner and helper, Mr. Wilson Guest."
As he said this, Sir William turned towards the end of the room where his assistant was busy bending over one of the machines.
The man, with the large hairless face, was pale, and his fingers were shaking, as they moved about among the screws and wires. He did not look up as Gouldesbrough paid him this just tribute, though every one of the spectators turned towards him at the mention of his name.
Truth to tell, Mr. Wilson Guest was, for the first time for many years, absolutely bereft of all alcoholic liquor since the night before. For the first time in their partnership Gouldesbrough had insisted upon Guest's absolute abstention. He had never done such a thing before, as he pointed out to his friend, but on this day he said his decision was final and he meant to be obeyed.
The frenzied entreaties of the poor wretch about mid-day, his miserable abasement and self-surrender, as he wept for his poison, were useless alike. He had been forced to yield, and at this moment he was suffering something like torture. It was indeed only by the greatest effort of his weakened will that he could attend to the mechanical duties of adjusting the sensitive machines for the demonstration which was to follow.
"I cannot suppose that any of you here are now unaware of the nature of my experiments and discovery. It has been ventilated in the press so largely during the last few days, and Mr. Donald Megbie has written such a lucid account of the influence which he believes the discovery will have upon modern life, that I am sure you all realize something of the nature of what I am about to show you.
"To put it very plainly, I am going to show you how thought can be collected in the form of vibrations, in the form of fluid electric current, and collected directly from the brain of the thinker as he thinks.
"I am further going to demonstrate to you how this current can be transformed into a visible, living and actual representation of the thoughts of the thinker."