«They have message for you,» said the girl.
Challenger seemed to brace himself for a blow.
«Well, what is it?»
«Too private. Not speak, all these people here.»
«We shall wait outside,» said Mailey. «Come, friends, let the Professor have his message.»
They moved towards the door leaving the man seated in front of his daughter. An unwonted nervousness seemed suddenly to seize him. «Malone, stay with me!»
The door closed and the three were left together.
«What is the message?»
«It is about a powder.»
«Yes, yes.»
«A grey powder?»
«Yes.»
«The message that men want me to say is: 'You did not kill us'.»
«Ask them then – ask them – how did they die?» His voice was broken and his great frame was quivering with his emotion.
«They die disease.»
«What disease?»
«New – new . . . What that? . . . Pneumonia.»
Challenger sank back in his chair with an immense sigh of relief. «My God!» he cried, wiping his brow. Then:
«Call in the others, Malone.»
They had waited on the landing and now streamed into the room. Challenger had risen to meet them. His first words were to Tom Linden. He spoke like a shaken man whose pride for the instant was broken.
«As to you, sir, I do not presume to judge you. A thing has occurred to me which is so strange, and also so certain, since my own trained senses have attested it, that I am not prepared to deny any explanation which has been offered of your previous conduct. I beg to withdraw any injurious expressions I may have used.»
Tom Linden was a true Christian in his character. His forgiveness was instant and sincere.
«I cannot doubt that my daughter has some strange power which bears out much which you, Mr. Mailey, have told me. I was justified in my scientific scepticism, but you have to-day offered me some incontrovertible evidence.»
«We all go through the same experience, Professor. We doubt, and then in turn we are doubted.»
«I can hardly conceive that my word will be doubted upon such a point,» said Challenger, with dignity. «I can truly say that I have had information to-night which no living person upon this earth was in a position to give. So much is beyond all question.»
«The young lady is better,» said Mrs. Linden.
Enid was sitting up and staring round her with bewildered eyes.
«What has happened, Father? I seem to have been asleep.»
«All right, dear. We will talk of that later. Come home with me now. I have much to think over. Perhaps you will come back with us, Malone. I feel that I owe you some explanation.»
When Professor Challenger reached his flat, he gave Austin orders that he was on no account to be disturbed, and he led the way into his library, where he sat in his big armchair with Malone upon his left and his daughter upon his right. He had stretched out his great paw and enclosed Enid's small hand.
«My dear,» he said, after a long silence, «I cannot doubt that you are possessed of a strange power, for it has been shown to me to-night with a fullness and a clearness which is final. Since you have it I cannot deny that others may have it also, and the general idea of mediumship has entered within my conceptions of what is possible. I will not discuss the question, for my thoughts are still confused upon the subject, and I will need to thrash the thing out with you, young Malone, and with your friends, before I can get a more definite idea. I will only say that my mind has received a shock, and that a new avenue of knowledge seems to have opened up before me.»
«We shall be proud indeed,» said Malone, «if we can help you.»
Challenger gave a wry smile.
«Yes, I have no doubt that a headline in your paper, 'Conversion of Professor Challenger' would be a triumph. I warn you that I have not got so far.»
«We certainly would do nothing premature and your opinions may remain entirely private.»
«I have never lacked the moral courage to proclaim my opinions when they are formed, but the time has not yet come. However, I have received two messages to-night, and I can only ascribe to them an extra-corporeal origin. I take it for granted, Enid, that you were indeed insensible.»
«I assure you, Father, that I knew nothing.»
«Quite so. You have always been incapable of deceit. First there came a message from your mother. She assured me that she had indeed produced those sounds which I heard and of which I have told you. It is clear now that you were the medium and that you were not in sleep but in trance. It is incredible, inconceivable, grotesquely wonderful – but it would seem to be true.»
«Crookes used almost those very words,» said Malone. He wrote that it was all 'perfectly impossible and absolutely true'.»
«I owe him an apology. Perhaps I owe a good many people an apology.»
«None will ever be asked for,» said Malone. «These people are not made that way.»
«It is the second case which I would explain.» The Professor fidgeted uneasily in his chair. «It is a matter of great privacy – one to which I have never alluded, and which no one on earth could have known. Since you heard so much you may as well hear all.
«It happened when I was a young physician, and it is not too much to say that it cast a cloud over my life – a cloud which has only been raised to-night. Others may try to explain what has occurred by telepathy, by subconscious mind action, by what they will, but I cannot doubt – it is impossible to doubt – that a message has come to me from the dead.
«There was a new drug under discussion at that time. It is useless to enter into details which you would be incapable of appreciating. Suffice it that it was of the datura family which supplies deadly poisons as well as powerful medicines. I had received one of the earliest specimens, and I desired my name to be associated with the first exploration of its properties. I gave it to two men, Ware and Aldridge. I gave it in what I thought was a safe dose. They were patients, you understand, in my ward in a public hospital. Both were found dead in the morning.
«I had given it secretly. None knew of it. There was no scandal for they were both very ill, and their death seemed natural. But in my own heart I had fears. I believed that I had killed them. It has always been a dark background to my life. You heard yourselves to-night that it was from the disease, and not from the drug that they died.»
«Poor Dad!» whispered Enid patting the great hirsute hand. «Poor Dad! What you must have suffered!»
Challenger was too proud a man to stand pity, even from his own daughter. He pulled away his hand.
«I worked for science,» he said. «Science must take risks. I do not know that I am to blame. And yet – and yet – my heart is very light to-night.»
17. Where the Mists Clear Away
MALONE had lost his billet and had found his way in Fleet Street blocked by the rumour of his independence. His place upon the staff had been taken by a young and drunken Jew, who had at once won his spurs by a series of highly humorous articles upon psychic matters, peppered with assurances that he approached the subject with a perfectly open and impartial mind. His final device of offering five thousand pounds if the spirits of the dead would place the three first horses in the coming Derby, and his demonstration that ectoplasm was in truth the froth of bottle porter artfully concealed by the medium, are newspaper stunts, which are within the recollection of the reader.
But the path which closed on one side had opened on the other. Challenger, lost in his daring dreams and ingenious experiments, had long needed an active, clear-headed man to manage his business interests, and to control his world-wide patents. There were many devices, the fruits of his life's work, which brought in income, but had to be carefully watched and guarded. His automatic alarm for ships in shallow waters, his device for deflecting a torpedo, his new and economical method of separating nitrogen from the air, his radical improvements in wireless transmission and his novel treatment of pitch blend, were all moneymakers. Enraged by the attitude of Cornelius, the Professor placed the management of all these in the hands of his prospective son-in-law, who diligently guarded his interests.