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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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"YES, doctor, fifteen proposals, and me not turned twenty! My! You should have seen the depot the day I left Chicago! Forty men fighting around our saloon to get a last spy at me! And—I'd refused every one of them!"
Virginia L. Pine sighed plaintively as she uttered her last words. Her inventions had not been artistic this afternoon. In her anxiety to strengthen her claims to distinction she had recklessly weakened her arithmetic. But Adam Aubroit's thin lips never relaxed to a smile as he looked at her pretty face and listened to her ingenuous lies. To the brain specialist she represented the interest of a "case."
A frown, however, gathered on his brow and from his perch in the musicians' gallery, he gazed down at the scene in the hall below. The vaulted roof echoed with wild merriment, and the Torquil portraits, dim and dark with age, seemed to be clearing the dust from their eyes as they, too, looked down on the revels. The house party, which was composed largely of flappers, was amusing itself by strenuous efforts to catch a small greased pig. The rain, which dashed against the great oriel window, was the cause of this ingenious device to escape boredom. In Aubroit's eyes it was the fitting climax of a distasteful week.
The specialist was a dealer in brains. The more damaged the article the keener his interest, but he abhorred the spectacle of no brains at all. Therefore, the young and frivolous guests gathered under the roof of Torquil Towers, although they excluded him from their extensive ragging, irritated his nerves by their high spirits.
Moreover, be personally disliked the American purchaser of Torquil Towers—Theophilus A. Pine, the soap king, who, despite the cleanly nature of the commodity be handled, had emerged from the labours of making his pile with considerably soiled hands and a besmirched name. But the crown of Aubroit's disappointment lay in the fact that the interesting case he had been detailed to watch was little better than a fraud.
It had sounded so promising when Cornelius Van Cruch, the doctor relative of the Pine family, had given him its details before handing over his cousin for the opinion of the specialist. Mrs. Pine had been even more emphatic in her statements.
"Yes, I know you don't go out as a rule," she had remarked. "They have to come to you; but we don't mind what we pay, so long as you cure Virgie. She's only queer so far, but she'll end in being crazed. It's this way. When Poppa bought this place of those Torquils, Virgie was just set on all the old mouldy part of it. She got dreamy like, and mazed. She's wonderfully spry at music, and she started off to learn the spindle. Spinet? Yes, of course, spinet. Then she got into the way of playing minuets, and those old-fashioned dances. And there you have the whole trouble in a hickory nutshell!"
Aubroit proceeded to wind up the loquacious lady anew. "Well?" he had enquired, sympathetically.
"Well, you know, doctor, if you were to play a waltz for folk to dance you'd keep straight on, not troubling about anything so long as you kept the time. Virgie's not like that. When she starts playing one of those old dances she's got a notion she's playing to folk she cant see. To give them a name, I just call them 'spooks.' And she looks downright struck, and acts silly. She's getting worse every day. Cornelius calls her a real baffling case!"
AUBROIT had looked forward to seeing Virginia. From what he
had heard of her strange personality, springing from so sordid a
stock as the parent Pines, he expected to find a throwback to a
period before the sailing of the Mayflower. He was very forcibly
struck by the idea of little American, uprooted from her
brand-new surroundings, and planted into the venerable pile of
Torquil Towers, finding her mind straying back into the past as,
subconsciously, through the notes of her spinet, her spirit
sought communion with the shades of departed generations.
The actual Virginia proved an electric shock. There was nothing of the dream maiden about her. Radically American, with scraps of surface veneer from every European capital daubed freely all over her, the whole French-polished by a Parisian education, she strongly reminded him of a black butterfly. It was true that her face, from which the hair frizzed back, was colourless, but her pallor was easily traceable to a very unpsychological cause—candy.
She was spoiled, self-centred, and neurotic, and Aubroit was inclined to attribute her supposed delusions to hysteria, engendered by indigestion, especially as he could see no signs to justify her parents fear of mental malady. Virginia was evidently shrewd enough to understand the value attached to the unknown, quantity, and resisted any attempt to be drawn regarding her claims to be an object of general interest. Aubroit looked at her now impatiently as she leaned forward, a delighted spectator of the pig hunt.
"Isn't that just cute?" she asked? "I'd like to join in, but it might give me palpitations." The next minute, with a squeal or laughter, she had rushed down into the fray, leaving Aubroit deep in reflection.
The result of his meditation he imparted later lo a council of three—Mrs. Pine, van Crouch, and Capt. Blair, R.N., one of the guests.
"You have had my opinion of your daughter this morning, Mrs. Pine," he said. "I believe her delusion is simply the result of hysteria, but, with her temperament, it is undoubtedly dangerous to allow it to take deeper root. I do not say your daughter is untruthful."
Blair raised his brows at the memory of Virginia's romances, but Aubroit took no notice.
"Your daughter apparently firmly believes," Aubroit continued, "that she plays for unseen dancers. Now, I want her to see them, and with your help, Capt. Blair, I think we can effect our object."
"I?" stammered the astonished young man.
"Yes, you. Young people are always on the qui vive for a fresh sensation. Give them one to-night—a ghost gavotte. Rig yourselves out in white, and don't the sparing of the powder. Dance on one of the lawns to her music. Miss Virginia is very sensitive to ridicule, and if it can be proved that she has simply been a victim of a practical joke, we shall hear no more about it."
Mrs. Pine scratched her nose thoughtfully.
"You'll never get Virgie to play!" she asserted.
Van Crouch grinned at the specialist.
"Guess you've cut off a bigger chunk than you can chew there, doctor," he said. "But you leave that part to me. I've got an idea."
THE young American had not overrated his powers of resource.
Aubroit felt uneasy that evening as guest after guest slipped
unostentatiously away, all alert with suppressed excitement about
the coming masquerade. He tried to pin Virginia down to a
tête-à-tête, but she soon grew restive, and he was
relieved beyond measure when Cornelius came towards them.
"Come on, Virgie," said Cornelius, "into the music room. We have a dandy treat on to-night, doctor. Virgie's going to play for me to make records."
Virginia's eyes sparkled with vanity. "We're going to send the records after to the folk we know in the States," she explained to Aubroit. "My! They will be tickled to hear me play again."
Two minutes later the girl was seated at the piano in the music room, her wine-coloured dress making a vivid splash of t brightness against the gloomy background. Aubroit, who had not expected much of a performance, was astonished at the brilliance and precision with which she tossed off a couple of Sousa's marches. That she was quick to notice his admiration was evident from the artifices and eye battery with which she embellished her playing. The two men kept feeding her with piece after piece, as though she were an animated pianola.
Presently Aubroit looked at his watch. Although a bachelor, he was enabled by the aid of his professional experience to determine the time-limit of the most exacting feminine toilette. Even now his keen ear seemed to detect the faint rustle of a silken petticoat and the tap of a high heeled slipper on the staircase outside, as though the ancestors had stepped from their frames and were banded together in a mighty Passing of the Portraits. When an unmistakable twentieth-century giggle, keyed up to the high pitch of "society," broke through the frou-frou and click of skirt and slipper, Aubroit spoke hastily.
"Thank you so much, Miss Virginia. Now just one more. One of your old English dances."
Virginia lowered her lids and looked at him sideways, with the slanting glance of a suspicious cat.
"I can't?" she muttered sullenly. "If I do they will want to dance."
"Well, why shouldn't they? Very good taste on their part! Any one would want to dance to your playing. You would make the Archbishop of Canterbury join in a cellar-flap. That is the whole secret, of this puzzling business. Have you ever seen them?"
Reassured by the matter-of-fact tone of Aubroit's voice, Virginia was betrayed into answering the carelessly tacked on question. The black pupils of her eyes seemed to split for the fraction of a second, revealing a glimpse of mystery.
"I don't Know—exactly," she said. "I—I think so. At least I'm not sure."
Aubroit smiled at the hesitation, so typical of her case. He had evidently taken her unawares—tapped a weak spot. By to-morrow she would be well coached up in the appearance of the dream dancers, with every detail supplied by the fertile imagination of hysteria. He took the girl's arm and led her towards the spinet.
"Just one," he pleaded. "Something to remember you by. The flattery in his voice, drew Virginia down to the music stool, but her hands still hung motionless over the yellow keys. Then she looked up at Aubroit.
"I'm afraid always when I play," she said, pitifully. "I am afraid I might lose the time. I can't explain, but if ever I put them out of stop something will happen."
"What?"
"Something terrible. Something—I don't know—"
Aubroit looked at her keenly as her voice dragged away. It was evident she was once again romancing, but although her hesitating words were neither fluent nor convincing, she had plainly succeeded in taking in herself; for her black eyes were now dark pools of staring fright. He flung aside the portiere that divided the music room from the drawing room, and, crossing over to the great windows, drew hack the curtain.
"The moon is just full," he said, softly. "What a night to dance! Can't you fancy you see them on the lawn?" He was about to switch off some of the lights when he felt a hand touch his shoulder, and Cornelius—unobtrusive, alert, and endowed with the self-effacing qualities of a perfect witness—spoke softly—
"Say," he whispered. "Leave me one light. I'm going to have a record of this. Sure!"
Aubroit nodded. Then he threw open the great window and waited. The room was almost in shadow, but a circle of light flickered like a great golden moth over the figure of the girl at the spinet.
"They are waiting!" whispered Aubroit, conscious of his nerves being at extreme tension. Virginia gave an affected little wriggle.
"Well, you must neither of you speak, or hum, or do anything to distract me," she commanded. "Promise!"
THE instant the men had given their word her fingers fell
hungrily on the old keys, and through the room stole the thin
strains of a gavotte. Aubroit looked at the girl. To his
astonishment he noticed that the moment she began to play a tidal
wave of oblivion seemed to pass over her face, completely
sweeping away every sign of self-consciousness. Her head nodding
in time with the stately measure, her body swaying in unison, she
seemed to have merged her whole personality into the expression
of the music. As the man watched, his own foot suddenly began to
tap the parquet flooring—an involuntary tribute to the
spell.
There was a curious fascination about the old-world air thus loosed from its prison in a faded manuscript. Daintily the notes minced through the room, picking their way with high-stepping precision. It was starchy and prudish, yet withal graceful, and sweet with the lilt of eternal youth and romance. An oft-recurring refrain wove itself again and again through the melody, like the blue ribbon of a true lover's knot. Up and down, down and up, now loud, now soft, it rippled on with an exquisite rhythm that rose and fell like the swell of a stately tide.
Aubroit broke free from his reverie. The time had come for action. Crossing again to the window, he looked into the night. But, even though prepared for the spectacle that greeted his eyes, so strong was the witchery of the gavotte that he started in spite of himself as he looked on to the lawn.
The dark sward stretched before him with the softness of black velvet, but the moon, shining brightly through the tall trees, shed a tracery of light on the darkness like the laced edge of an old valentine.
Moving to and fro in measured tread to the strains of the spinet was a shadowy company of dancers in shimmering drapery and courtly dress. Silhouetted whitely against the dark yew hedges, they seemed ghostly and unreal, stranded strays from the Age of Patch and Powder, called back by the spell of the music once more to foot it on the dew-spangled grass under the limelight radiance of the moon.
"Capital effect!" thought Aubroit, rubbing his chin with appreciation.
Then he turned towards Virginia. Her eyes were closed, her lips pressed together, as if in a passionate exclusion of all outside interests.
For some long seconds the specialist hesitated. It seemed almost akin to wanton cruely to break in on her absorption; and rudely shatter her reverie. At last shaking off the fancy with as effort, he spoke suddenly and sharply:
"Look." He pointed to the window. The word was like a pistol shot crashing through the crystal of a magic globe. Something seemed to snap in the air. One could almost hear the whirr of the crotchets and quavers as they were suddenly leashed off the stave like a swarm of black bees; the music tripped in its lilting rhythm—floundered to a fall.
A low cry burst from Virginia's lips. Aubroit expected her to spring to her feet and come to the window. To his surprise, without another glance she leant again over the notes, hot on the trail of the air, picking up the mangled melody, until, with hardly a break, it rippled on again in fluting sweetness.
The specialist frowned with annoyance. Apparently his plan had failed. Again he turned to the window; but the dancers had now disappeared. A few moments later, with one final nerve-tingling chord the gavotte was over.
For a space Virginia sat staring into vacancy, her hands hanging limply by her sides. Then, without warning, she threw herself on the ground in an unrestrained passion of grief. When Aubroit bent over her she shook off his hand in a frenzy of terror.
"You broke your word!" she shrieked. "I lost the time. I put them out. It means—death!"
Cornelius, who bad been an interested of the scene, now, as he stroked his cousin's hand gently, darted an angry glance at Aubroit.
"Why did you scare her like that, doctor?" he asked angrily. "You've made her real sick now. Guess we don't treat our women that way. I wouldn't touch your methods with a long pole."
"Turn on the lights," was Aubroit's sole answer. He heard the sound of footsteps outside, and he knew that the masqueraders had returned. As the great cluster of electric bulbs burst into golden bloom, flooding the place with light, the door was flung wide and a laughing throng of quaintly garbed figures dashing into the room, made a ring round the girl.
Virginia gazed at them with bewilderment. In spite of paint, patch, and powder, face after face grew familiar. As one by one her guest's identity peeped through their disguises she suddenly grew scarlet.
To Aubroit's intense joy she flung aside Cornelius's hand as though he had been red-hot iron, subjecting his own to similar treatment as she hastily drew her skirts violently over her dainty ankles. He gloried in her restoration to her fierce sense of the proprieties after her former distressing self-abandonment.
"What does this mean, Capt. Blair?" she demanded of the nearest masquerader. "It means I'll soon be a blancmange if I don't get this stuff out of my head," was the prompt answer. "Powder ran out, and they dredged me with cornflour. Its been a ripping lark, Miss Pine. We rigged ourselves up like old-time Johnnies, and went dancing out there on the lawn to your music. Didn't you see us?"
"Yes, I saw you," answered Virginia quietly.
"It was simply divine," chimed in one of the Carstair twins. "The smartest thing we've done this year. Our ghost gavotte! And that sweet quaint spinet! But you put us out once."
"You lost the time. You remember?" remarked Aubroit meaningly, turning to Virginia. Her visibly increasing humiliation gave him added satisfaction. Getting up from the ground, she looked squarely into the laughing faces of her guests. Then she summed up her feelings in one tense sentence. "Well! I guess I've just made a real fool of myself!"
With a glow of professional pleasure Aubroit registered another success. He took little note of the noisy commotion amid laughter that followed, for his thoughts were dwelling on trains back to town. But when the exuberant crew finally started upstairs to shed their borrowed plumage he stopped Capt. Blair for a moment.
"Thanks, Blair," he said. "You did capitally, and put it all in. I am hopeful that you've bounced that silly girl out of her delusions."
"Well, I flatter myself it was no nine carat affair," replied Blair modestly. "All the same, it seemed rather rotten to guy one's hostess like that! Only the Momma was with us, egging us on. What did we look like, footing away on the west lawn?"
"South lawn," corrected the doctor. Blair drew his mouth to one side.
"I'm ready to give you best over pills and blisters, doctor," he answered. "But you must allow a sailor to know a little about the points of the compass. West—I say, west."
As he went out of the room, leaving the specialist alone, Aubroit turned towards the great south window, repeating obstinately—"And I say, south."
But immediately he gave a violent start and then sprang in the direction he was gazing. For a little space his eyes strained into the shadows of the lawn. Then he threw away his cigar, crossed to a mirror, and looked at himself closely, criticising his tired eyes and dragged cheeks with professional scrutiny.
"I'm going to prescribe for you, old man," he said softly to his reflection. "Something you're not specially keen on—bed."
But as he passed out of the room he threw a last glance at the south window—a glance of half-expectation, wholly nervous trepidation. He could have sworn that a moment previously, pressed against the panes, its dark eyes glazed with terror, he had seen a strange white face set in a frame of powdered hair.
IN spite of his good resolutions, Aubroit proved that he
possessed a very bad patient in himself, for he did not rest long
that night. Moreover, whatever he put on at one end he took off
at the other, for early in the small grey hours of the morning he
was pacing the grounds of Torquil Towers. In the dim light
everything looked chill and eerie as he approached the south
lawn. The clipped peacocks on the yew hedge watched austerely
over the prim turf, whose unruffled surface disclaimed any
suggestion of having been a scene of over: night revelry.
Aubroit whistled softly then he walked round to the west lawn. There a very different scene met his eyes. Alas for the graceful slide and bend of the stately gavotte! Rutted with the imprints of high heels, and bearing the marks of many a slip and stamp, the wet grass reminded him forcibly of the mutilated ground after a cattle show.
"Blair was right," he admitted. "The dance evidently took place here."
Then he loaned against an did sundial and began, to reflect on the face he imagined he had seen at the window. It rose up instantly in vivid relief before his mental vision. Triangular in shape, eyes set widely apart, chin tapering to a sharp point, it did not correspond in any single detail to the face of any one of the guests.
The brain specialist knitted his brows.
"Rather interesting," he mused. "Clearly a case of mental telepathy—automatic suggestion of some kind. In my keyed-up, receptive condition last, night I was a fit subject to received vivid impression of the creation of that girl's imagination. She was hazy about what she thought she saw, but she transmitted a very clear mental photograph to my sensitised brain. Very interesting!"
He looked forward with eagerness to meeting his patient.
At the first sight of her at the breakfast table, he was further reassured. During the night she had shed her air of self-importance, and appearing now shamefaced and unwilling to meet his eye. It was only by dint of strong maternal persuasion that she was coaxed into the drawing room after the meal for a final interview.
Before he could speak she burst into the subject.
"It's real mean in you, doctor, to talk about last night," she cried. "I feel so mortified I could just... I reckon I got crazed about this old house, and started to moon and fancy. But I allow I'm cured now, that's a cinch. I'll never be caught again grovelling on the Axminster showing inches of stocking! Not me!"
Aubroit smiled. "That's all right," he said. "Now, with a confident heart, I can wish you goodbye, with the very pleasant hope that I may never see you again. But before I go, suppose you play a me that gavotte again. I want to hear it."
Virginia pouted. Nothing on earth would induce her to play that dreadful piece, she vowed, yet in the midst of her protestations she began to play. Leaning back in his chair listening, Aubroit looked round the great room. Two old portraits of the Stuart period at the end of the room caught his eye and stirred a vague wonder in his breast. But his brain only worked feebly. Virginia's performance engrossed his attention, and when she had finished he thanked her heartily.
There was no doubt that the neurotic girl had been laughed out of her hysteria. The haunting quality had completely disappeared from her playing, and no touch of mystery now transformed her pretty face from the commonplace. Aubroit's interest in her died on the spot. She was no longer a case.
THE next day found him back in London, starting fresh
researches, tracking to its lair the spark of reason that had
strayed from its rightful course and been lost in the labyrinth
of a diseased brain. But the Pines did not forget Aubroit as
easily as Aubroit forgot the Pines. From time to time he received
grateful letters, giving copious details of Virginia's
improvement as expressed principally in golf scores. She was a
different girl, they asserted, adding with a true Irish touch
that they had to thank Aubroit for her restoration, and could not
be sufficiently grateful. The specialist yawned over the letters,
but duly filed them away with the record of the case.
ABOUT six months later Aubroit had further news of Virginia
Pine. On the eve of his departure to India for a long-overdue
holiday, he received an unexpected visitor in the shape of Dr.
Dan Crouch. The young American was evidently permeated with joy.
He bore unofficial news of a great event that had taken place in
the Pine family, and which was shortly going to press under the
heading of "A marriage has been arranged."
Virginia Pine had become engaged to no less a personage than the present Lord Torquil.
"Thought you'd like to know, seeing you're responsible for rubbing the moss off Virginia, doctor," said his American colleague, on parting, mauling Aubroit's hand painfully. "And, by the way. I brought you some of the records I took of her playing that night. You remember. They're real good, and I suspicioned they'd sort of interest you as souvenirs."
Aubroit thanked his visitor mechanically and went upstairs to his packing. Pitching the bundle into a half-filled bag, he let his thoughts wander momentarily on the strange chance that had led the little American interloper to link her lot with the original owner of Torquil Towers.
Then, suddenly, he gave a short laugh of excitement; an extraordinary thought had struck him.
"That face at the window," he said, aloud. "I have it now. It bore a strong resemblance to the Torquil family portraits. Very apt. Fits in with the girl's delusions, which were evidently engendered and coloured by her surroundings."
Aubroit's interest, however, was but perfunctory, for the case of Virginia Pine had long been shelved to make room for fresh arrivals.
IN the months that followed it receded entirely from his
memory, for although his visit to India was to partake of the
nature of a rest cure, his life work had built him a reputation
that rose up, like Macbeth, to murder peace, and social
engagements and invitations poured in.
After a constant round of sightseeing, and being seen, as England's latest lion, Aubroit accepted with keen relief an invitation to spend a week in a bungalow high up in the hills.
His host, Major Croft, a man who spoke little, but who smoked most eloquently, proved an ideal companion at the end of the long days which the specialist spent rambling among the hills, finding in the pure air and solitude a perfect panacea for brain fag.
On the last day of his visit he walked down the steep path among the deodars with a feeling, of deep regret. On one side the ground fell sheer away, and as he looked down the precipice to the blue distances the thought of the grime-filled streets of London set his teeth on edge, he shook his fist at a grey ape that ragged him from the branches above his head.
His face was still clouded with the thought of his return when he reached the bungalow. Croft met him on the verandah, and his host's first words did not dispel his gloom.
"Rotten nuisance!" Croft grumbled. "Sha'n't have our final jaw! Visitor—Lord Torquil—girl he's engaged to told him to look you up."
Back again went Croft's pipe, as if loth to leave his lips for so long a spell.
Aubroit swore expressively.
"Where is he?" he asked.
"In my room—sleeping—fagged out. He's playing in some theatricals—'School for Scandal'—in Simla to-night, and has come a deuce out of his way, ready dressed, to take you in. Had to make a triangle to do it. Heard you were leaving to-morrow and knew it would be his only chance. Said the girl would never forgive him if he didn't manage it somehow. I fancy he wants the chance to jabber about her."
Croft looked gloomy 'as he uttered his dark suspicion about Torquil's desire for conversation; and then collapsed into silence, completely worn out by the strain. For a moment the pair smoked in silence. Then Aubroit spoke petulantly:—
"I don't know the fellow from Adam. Hang the Pines! I never had a case that kept cropping up so after it was done, with. I always have the feeling that I'm never to be clear of it—that there's still something to come."
Blue rings from Croft's pipe answered him effectually.
"He'll have a hundred questions to ask about that girl," resumed Aubroit, "and it will, be talking through the back of my neck to answer them. Just out from home with his regiment, isn't he? Well, I suppose I must sacrifice myself, and resurrect a few creditable anecdotes of Miss Virginia L. Pine, of U.S.A."
"He can't stop long," grunted Croft, hopefully. This optimism was contagious. Aubroit suddenly gave a smile of inspiration.
"I have it!" he exclaimed. "I have some records of Miss Pine's playing. Packed them by mistake and carted them round India. Evidently for this. There's a reason for everything, Croft, my boy, as we learn in our scientific A.B.C. Just put them on the gramophone. They will interest him."
As Aubroit hurried off to find the bundle it struck him as a strange freak of fate that the records he had hitherto regarded as an incubus should be tested for the first time in the pretence of the sole person for whom they could possess any value.
Croft slipped on a record and started to winding the gramophone. He grunted sympathetically.
"Torquil will have a breakfast," he said. "Hearing his beloved playing to him in benighted India. Hang it all, Aubroit, they're young! And they're infernally in love!"
Aubroit nodded.
As the strains of the gavotte broke free from the whir of the instrument an unwonted feeling of sentiment stirred in his crusted heart. From the sweet notes of the spinet a young girl in her sheltered English home seemed to be calling to her lover in his Eastern exile.
Croft stole along the verandah in the direction of Torquil's room.
"I'll dig him out," he said. Carelessly be raised the click. Then Aubroit, who was watching his host, saw a sudden change sweep over Croft's face. His fingers sawed blindly in the air, until he beckoned frantically to his friend. Aubroit in turn stole noiselessly to the doorway.
AT first, as he looked into the darkened room, he could see
nothing. Then he became aware of a man stretched out on a cane
lounge chair. He wore a court suit of the Georgian period, and a
powdered white wig framed ghastly features set in a stare of
agony.
With a sharp stab at his heart Aubroit recognised the face of Lord Torquil. He had seen it before. It was the face of the window!
In that tense moment the brain specialist realised the riddle of his vision It stood revealed in a baleful light of significance. The episode of Torquil Towers was only one half—the unconnected half was—tragedy.
On Torquil's breast a dark mass bulged, coil upon coil of hideous life, and the man's terror-stricken gaze was concentrated on the threatening head of a cobra. Aubroit could see the spectacle marks on the scales shining in the light of the setting sun as the creature swayed to an fro but a foot distant from the forehead of the motionless man. Daintily and mincingly the notes of the gavotte trickled in with the sickly sweetness of the old-world air, steeped with lavender and pot-pourri. Up and down, down and up, it rippled with perfect time and beat. As the spell of the rhythm threw its noose over the reptile Croft clutched Aubroit's shoulder with a grip of iron.
The snake was dancing to the music!
"My gun!" Croft whispered. "Pray to God I'll be in time before the record ends!"
Aubroit could not stir. One tiny sip from the awful draught of the prescient Immortals had been vouchsafed him. He knew the end.
A year ago in a quiet English home, the tragedy had played out in the sound of a girl's shriek. The white face, the staring eyes, the swaying snake, all passed away. He could only see a darkened room and a girl in a wine-coloured robe playing in a gold circlet of light.
"I have lost the time. It means death!"
The words rang through his brain again and again, the dainty notes still rippling like a thread of delicate beads. The oscillation of the reptile grew dreamy as the music steeped its senses.
Like a shadow the form of Croft slid down the passage.
A moment passed with the dragging eternity of an hour. As he waited Aubroit's scalp tightened as if from the pressure of an encircling vise.
Then suddenly it came—the dreaded flaw in the record! The music stumbled to discord.
At that moment two things happened almost simultaneously. The snake struck and Croft fired. But before the smoke cleared Aubroit had answered the unspoken question in Croft's eyes. He shook his head, for he knew that, even as it was in the beginning, it was the hour of the Snake.
Roy Glashan's Library
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