Chapter 9

WITCHCRAFT.

While Vernon was having his interview with Ida and her companion Colonel Towton went on a little expedition of his own. Ever since the discovery that Ida had been to Diabella, Towton had been anxious, in his turn, to pay a visit to the famous Bond Street fortune-teller. Ida, as the Colonel had told Vernon, apparently was suffering from the effects of what she had been told by this fashionable Witch of Endor, although what had been said Towton could not find out. Miss Hest and the girl had both held their peace on the subject, notwithstanding that the former had talked generally on the wonderful powers of the woman. In fact, she had seriously advised Colonel Towton to interview Diabella and search out the future for himself. The soldier had laughed, as he was not given to dabble in occultism. Nevertheless, he had made up his mind to seek out the seeress, if only to discover indirectly what those methods of devilry were which had so strongly impressed Miss Dimsdale. Towton, to put it plainly, went less as a client than as a spy.

Considering that Ida had no very strongly-marked personality, it was wonderful that the Colonel should be so deeply in love with her. He was clever in his own way, and not without brain-power inside and outside his own particular military profession. His bravery was undeniable, his tact considerable, and he had left the Army on account of family affairs with the name of one who had cut short a brilliant career unnecessarily. Towton assuredly would have risen to be a general had he not retired when the family estates came into his possession. But now that he had abandoned his profession his one aim was to marry and lead a quiet domestic life. He did not wish for a clever wife, or a wealthy wife, or a particularly lovely wife, as he was too matter-of-fact to be romantic. His dream was of a peaceful hearth and a house perfectly managed by a gentle wife. In Ida he believed that he saw the helpmate he so greatly desired: one who would make her husband's will her law, and who would be a cheerful companion. Her moods he believed to be the result of lack of guidance, and he flattered himself that when she became Mrs. Towton he would be able to render her less freakish. Ida's nature was so impressionable that he thought it could be easily moulded, and in this he no doubt was right. Many of the girl's faults were due to the over-indulgence of her father, and to the lack of a firm hand to lead her in the right way. She would have welcomed a master, having one of those natures responsive to suggestion. And, in an unconscious way, the Colonel appealed to her as a strong, kind-hearted man, who could shelter her from the storms of life better than any one else could. In point of fact, the two were made for one another, and, but for the intrusion of Maunders, their course of true love would have run smooth.

However, Colonel Towton was extremely obstinate, and, having decided that Ida was the very wife he desired to preside over his dinner-table, he was determined not to let her be snatched from him by any rival. He admitted with some dread that Maunders was a formidable wooer, and moreover guessed, with the keen instinct of a man in love, that Frances Hest had too much control over the girl. For one thing, she had induced Ida to go to Diabella, a thing Towton would never have permitted had he been able to help it. He knew from his Indian experience only too well that there is truth in occultism, and that an impressionable being--such as Ida truly was--could easily be obsessed by strong suggestion. He had no reason to doubt Miss Hest, and did not think for one moment that she was his enemy in any way: but, with the assistance of suggestions from Diabella, she might lead Ida into unhealthy ways. And all those dealings with the unseen with which psychics have to do were unhealthy in the Colonel's very material eyes. Already, as he had seen for himself, the visit to Diabella had upset Ida; so, whatever the harm done might be, it was necessary to undo it by proving the woman to be a fraud. Towton therefore ascended the stairs to the consulting-room of Diabella with the intention of learning if the fortune-teller was a humbug. Once assured of that, he resolved to explain her methods to Miss Dimsdale and so prevent her trusting as truth whatever the woman had said. Then Ida's indignation at being duped, as the Colonel believed she had been, would probably shake Miss Hest's position. Towton felt certain that Frances was more friendly to Maunders than to himself, and at one sweep he hoped to get rid of both. Afterwards Ida would be more willing to become his wife.

Diabella's offices, as they might be called, consisted of two rooms: a small outer one entered directly from the passage, and a spacious inner one which overlooked the street. As Towton tapped at the door of the prophetess his thoughts suddenly flew back to his many years of sojourn in the Far East. For the moment he could not think what had detached him so unexpectedly from England until, on stepping across the threshold of the now open door, he became aware of a strong, pungent scent, impossible to describe. At once he noted it as that smell of the bazaars, which runs without a break from Port Said to Hong Kong. Perfume is the strongest of aids to memory, therefore Towton's thoughts had flashed back over many years to various Indian experiences. His body was in England, but his soul was in the East: nor did the sight which met his eyes dispel the illusion. The room he entered and the attendant who welcomed him were both Egyptian in looks.

The small apartment resembled an ancient tomb, as the walls and ceiling were painted vividly with hieroglyphics, glowing in crimson and blue and yellow and emerald green. Through a stained-glass skylight overhead a dim, coloured light streamed just sufficiently to reveal the weird looks of the room. It was faked, of course, but very cleverly faked, as the Colonel secretly admitted; even to the attendant, who, apparently a true Eastern, was attired in a garb which one of Pharaoh's fan-bearers might have worn appropriately. The floor was covered with linoleum painted to resemble marble, and there was a quaintly-shaped table of ebony, two or three antique and uncomfortable chairs, copied from furniture of the XIX. Dynasty, and a weird-looking teak sofa, covered with bright yellow cushions. What with the grotesquely-painted walls, the sparsity of furniture, the dim light, the scented atmosphere, and the strangely-dressed attendant, who salaamed profusely, Colonel Towton felt as though he had stepped at one stride across the Mediterranean to a resuscitated Memphis.

The man was a slim, straight native, with handsome, haughty features of the Brahmin type, and Towton wondered that he had broken caste to cross the Black Water. He had keen, black eyes, which took in the looks of the English sahib in a single flash, notwithstanding that he stood with crossed arms and downcast eyes. Towton wondered if he spoke English, and, for the sake of an experiment, addressed him in Tamil. The dark-skinned man replied in very fair English, with an inquisitive glance at this stranger who spoke the Indian dialect so glibly.

"Is your mistress in?" enquired the Colonel, speaking Tamil.

"Within, sahib, and she waits," was the reply in Anglo-Saxon.

Immediately following these few words Towton was led into the inner room, and the attendant closed the door after him, leaving the client alone with Diabella. The room was decorated much in the same tomb-like fashion as the other one, but there were mummies standing round the wall at intervals in their richly adorned coffins, and the two windows looking on to Bond Street were draped with rich Eastern stuffs to entirely exclude the light of day. But several lamps, burning perfumed oil, dangled from the ceiling, and the room was filled with a mellow radiance, eminently suited to the object for which it was used. Towton shrewdly surmised that the peculiar decorations, the exclusion of daylight for the use of artificial illumination, and the highly-scented atmosphere which prevailed even more strongly here than it had done in the outer room, were all meant to daze the senses of Diabella's clients so that they might more readily credit her assertions. It was all cleverly conceived and carried out.

The woman herself was seated at the end of the room under a kind of canopy on an uncomfortable ebony-wood chair inlaid with ivory. Before her was a tiny square table of the same sombre wood, with twisted legs, and on this stood a large crystal the size of a small orange. Diabella was seated in a hieratical attitude with her hands on her knees, like some stone god, and wore a stiff straight robe of mingled black and yellow, which made her resemble a viper. But her face struck Towton most, as she apparently wore an entire mask modelled in wax from some actual Egyptian mummy. This was surmounted by the well-known head-dress of harsh black ringlets, combed straightly to the shoulders. The mouth of the mask was partially open, so that the fortune-teller could speak easily behind it. With her dead-looking face and motionless attitude, Diabella looked exactly like the mummies which flanked her right and left. And right and left also, in tall iron tripods, flamed some spirits, which cast weird lights on her uncanny appearance. Nothing better could have been designed to impress the weak-minded; and in that Temple of Illusion and from the lips of such a strange creature the boldest might be excused for believing the impossible. Even Colonel Towton felt an unaccustomed shudder, as though he were in the presence of the Unseen.

"You wish to consult those who dwell in darkness about the future?" asked the sorceress in a strange, metallic voice, as unhuman as were her looks.

Towton smiled scornfully and twisted his moustache. He had quite recovered his momentary obsession by that perfumed atmosphere, and sat down with a cool air. "You should speak Egyptian to be perfect," he scoffed.

Diabella disdained to notice the jeer. "Would you have me look in the crystal, or spell the cards, or read the hand."

"None of the three, thank you," said Towton drily. "Do you really possess the power of reading things?"

"I can read the past, the present, and the future;' I can tell all that is permitted to be told by the Powers. You are an unbeliever."

The Colonel chuckled. "Wrong, first shot. Having seen a good deal of this sort of thing; although," he glanced round the room, "scarcely so dressy a place, I believe that some gifted people have certain senses at command, if not under control, with which they can foretell things. I quite appreciate your remark about the Powers permitting and forbidding, as I am aware that such is the case."

"I did not say that you were an unbeliever generally," said Diabella, trying to recover her lost ground, "but that you did not believe in me."

"You did not put it precisely in that fashion," retorted Towton. "However, I may as well have my guinea's worth. Is there any reason why I should believe in you?" he demanded contemptuously.

The quiet voice replied indifferently. "Yes. I have not held your hand nor have I contacted your atmosphere closely. Still, I am sufficiently in touch with you to state that you bring a woman in your aura."

"In my what?" asked the Colonel, wilfully dense.

"The aura of your magnetism streams from you radiant as a rainbow. In it is standing the thought-form of a girl. She is not very tall, she has blue eyes and golden hair, and you love her. Am I right?"

"I shan't say," replied the Colonel, secretly surprised to hear this description of Ida and the statement of his feelings towards her. "Humph!" He made a half unwilling admission, "you have some psychic powers, after all. Tell me more."

"Give me your ring," commanded Diabella imperiously. "It is impregnated with your magnetism and will thus suggest your colour."

"My colour?" repeated the Colonel interrogatively and removing his signet ring to place it on the ebony table.

Diabella picked it up and held it in the hollow of her right hand. "Every human being in the unseen world around has a colour which is the prevailing hue of the kamic body, tinted by desire. I can thus recognise you as you appear on the astral plane, and so can read your karma of the past, which appears in the astral records. Thence I can deduce your future for good or evil, in a great measure correctly."

"Then you can't be certain that what you tell me is true?"

"No. Under certain circumstances, when the High Ones permit, the future is revealed beyond all doubt, but those circumstances are connected only with spiritual enlightenment. Otherwise those who have the sight merely deduce what will happen by reading the karma of the past, which can be discerned in the astral light."

"Your claims are certainly more modest than I expected," said Towton somewhat interested, "and if you can tell me my past life correctly I shall credit more or less your prophecies. You know my name?"

"Richard Towton."

"Ah--you got that from my letter asking for an appointment. But I have a middle name which I don't use. What is it?"

"Richard Henry Towton is your full name."

"Correct. Where was I educated?"

"At Wimperly Public School, and then at Sandhurst."

Towton nodded. "You might be certain of Sandhurst, as I am a soldier, but Wimperly is good. Go on."

"You joined your regiment twenty-five years ago, and shortly after joining it was ordered to India. You were stationed at Bombay, afterwards at Travancore. You fought in Burmah, where you met Martin Dimsdale, and became intimate with him. You won a D.S.O. in the Vikram Expedition, and----"

"All that," interrupted the Colonel politely, "with the exception of my meeting with Dimsdale, you might have read in the newspapers. Why did I retire from the army?"

"Your cousin died and left you The Grange at Bowderstyke, in Yorkshire. You gave up your profession so as to get the estates in order: they had been sadly neglected by your cousin, who was a drunkard."

"That is impolite, but true," said Towton with a grimace. "Go on."

"You wish to marry."

The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. "Every man wishes to marry."

"You wish to marry a girl called Ida Dimsdale," went on the passionless voice, and Diabella refrained from making any comment on the remark.

"Ah! Now you are becoming interesting. Why do I wish to marry Ida Dimsdale?" The reply was unexpected. "You desire to get her money in order to recover certain lands sold by your late cousin."

"That is a lie." Towton grew a trifle red and spoke sharply. "I love Miss Dimsdale, and would take her without a penny."

"That is how you will have to take her," replied Diabella coldly and without insisting upon the truth of her previous statement.

"Nonsense! Miss Dimsdale has a large fortune."

"You think she has ten thousand a year. She has nothing."

Towton felt an astonishment which he could scarcely conceal, and wondered if Diabella had spoken in this way to Ida. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that this girl is not the daughter of Martin Dimsdale."

"What!" Towton rose in his surprise; "How dare you say that?"

"I am only reading what I see," said Diabella wearily. "Your fortune and this girl's is connected, therefore I know of her past."

"Past! Past!" fumed the Colonel, sitting down again. "She has no past in the sense you mean. She was born in Burmah, and her mother died shortly afterwards. Dimsdale sent her home to relatives, and afterwards she went to school at Hampstead. Five years ago he returned to settle in England and she has been with him ever since."

"Quite true; but you are foolish to tell me so much, as now you will say that I merely echo what you have mentioned."

"I have certainly not mentioned that she is not Dimsdale's daughter."

"No. Yet it is true. Her name is Ida Menteith, and her father was a major in a native regiment. Menteith was with his wife in Burmah at a hill station called--called--wait until I get the name." Diabella stopped for one moment, then spoke out triumphantly, "It was called Goorkah Station, and was besieged by the Dacoits?"

"Yes. I remember the station, but not a man called Menteith."

"This happened before you went to India."

"What happened?" asked Towton bluntly. "What I am about to tell you. Dimsdale was then a police-commissioner. He loved Mrs. Menteith, who returned his love, and hated the husband."

"I don't believe that for one moment. Dimsdale was a good fellow, who would never make love to another man's wife."

"Many good fellows do that," said Diabella sarcastically; "and Dimsdale did love Mrs. Menteith: so deeply that he did not save the husband's life when he could have done so."

"That's an absolute lie," insisted Towton angrily. "How dare you malign a dead man who cannot defend himself!"

"Martin Dimsdale's friend, George Venery, who is a merchant at Singapore, can prove the truth of what I say."

"Rubbish! How do you know?"

"I read all I am telling you in the astral light," said Diabella. "If it displeases you I need tell no more."

"It does not so much displease me as make me wonder at your imagination."

Diabella still preserved her immobility. "Write to George Venery and you will find that I have spoken the truth."

"It seems incredible," muttered Towton doubtfully. "Of course, I know that there is great truth in occult matters. But what you say is too precise to be anything but what you must have learned--perhaps from this man."

"No," replied the fortune-teller. "I never heard the name of Venery before, and I have never been to Singapore or even to Burmah. I only read what I see. How else should I know?"

The Colonel made a gesture of disbelief. Although he believed in the unseen, from various Indian experiences, he could not credit the story of this masked woman. "Go on, and tell me more," he said at length; "later I can write to Mr. Venery and verify your statements."

"Ida Dimsdale is Menteith's daughter," said Diabella quietly. "She was born in Rangoon when her father was being besieged in Goorkah Station. Dimsdale was in the neighbourhood with a force and hastened to relieve his friend. But he purposely delayed his approach so that the station might be taken and Menteith killed."

"I don't believe that for one moment. Dimsdale would not act so wickedly."

"He did act in that way, as Venery can tell you. It was his behaviour that caused a breach between them. Dimsdale hoped to get rid of Menteith and so marry the wife. His plan of delay was successful, and the station was taken by the Dacoits. Menteith was crucified and his perfidious friend arrived when he was dying. Menteith was buried at Goorkah Station and Dimsdale returned to Rangoon, hoping to marry Mrs. Menteith now that the obstacle was removed. Mrs. Menteith, however, weak after the birth of her child, died in a few days. Then Dimsdale was stricken with remorse and brought up the child as his own. She has passed for his daughter and, as his next-of-kin, inherits the money. But she is no relation, since Dimsdale did not leave a will and----"

"How do you know that Dimsdale left no will?"

"I might have seen it in the papers," said Diabella coolly; "but I did not, for to my sight the hidden things of Dimsdale's life are revealed. But you can understand that if you marry Ida you will get no money with her. The truth will be made known and Lady Corsoon will inherit it, as it is but right she should do."

Towton rose so hurriedly that he knocked over his chair. "I can't stand any more of this," he declared impetuously; "all your occult business is a sham, and you are making up lies. I insist upon your removing that mask so that I may know who you are."

Diabella rose, tall and straight and stiff, but did not seem disturbed. "Beware, Colonel Towton. If you advance a step it will be the worse for you."

The military man laughed and stepped forward. "I must know who you are, as I intend to make you pay for telling these falsehoods."

"They are true."

"They are lies. Now I know why Miss Dimsdale was agitated because of her visit to you. You told her this story also."

"What if I did? The truth----" she flung up a hand as the Colonel took another step forward. "Stand back, I tell you."

"Take your mask off," he insisted, and stretched out his hand.

Diabella swerved to one side and avoided his grasp. Then she dropped into her chair, pressing the arms of the same hard. Immediately from the mummies set round the room came a most unearthly crying, which confounded the Colonel, not expecting such a tumult. The weird room rang with thin wailings and dismal cries. It was evident that some mechanism connected with the chair produced these noises. The place was filled with clever contrivances to intimidate nervous people. But Colonel Towton was not nervous, and after his first startled pause he sprang forward again to seize the seated figure. At all costs he was determined to unmask the sorceress and learn who she was. Then he might hope to find out how she had become possessed of these facts concerning Dimsdale's past life, or whether those same facts were simply lies designed to perplex and mystify.

Diabella never moved as Towton came towards her, and the Colonel soon knew why she was thus certain of her safety. Before he could reach the hither side of the ebony table, rapidly as he moved, he was gripped from behind by two gigantic hands and twisted round sharply to face a tall and burly Hindoo arrayed in a white robe and wearing a white turban. "Let me go, you dog!" muttered Towton in the Tamil dialect, and set his teeth.

Diabella clapped her hands and the two men closed in a fierce struggle. As they swayed round the room the ebony table was upset and the woman cried out a sentence in an unknown language in her metallic voice. The next moment the native unloosened his grip on the Englishman and stepped back.

"Will you go now?" demanded Diabella quietly and addressing Towton.

"No," he cried fiercely. "I want your mask removed."

Whether Diabella gave a sign or not Towton was never able to say, but she must have given a signal, for just as the words left his mouth the native sprang forward with the leap of a tiger and the next moment Towton found a silk handkerchief round his neck. It flashed across him that in this way had Dimsdale been killed, and then, with the tightening of the handkerchief, came almost insensibility, or, rather, a dazed feeling, which bewildered his brain.

He had a faint feeling of being led out of the room and of hearing a door closed. When he recovered his senses he found himself seated on the floor of the passage quite alone. His first thought was to tell the police what had occurred, his second to conceal the adventure.

"I shall consult with Vernon," he thought, and walked unsteadily down the stairs, feeling his neck somewhat sore, but otherwise uninjured.