Grey Face/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
THE GLASS MASK
AND whilst these two talked in George Street a strange scene was being enacted in that small, tower-like room crowning the house in Park Lane recently acquired by Trepniak. The room, which could be approached only by a narrow staircase from the study below, was fitted as a sort of freakish laboratory, its appointments being of a character calculated to induce any modern man of science to doubt his sanity. Cagliostro might have worked in such a place or Dr. John Dee; it resembled the dream of some disciple of Avicenna who had eaten hashish, or the observatory of a priest of Bel.
Amid many singular objects, the purposes of which must have defied the experience of any scientist in Europe, there was one to claim prior attention—a thing as anomalous as a figment of sleep. This was an enormous globe of solid crystal, or, since it possessed a faint blue tinge, of beryl. It rested upon the needle-pointed apex of a tall pedestal. A similar point, descending like a stalactite from the ceiling, touched the top of the globe. And, propelled by no visible power, the huge gleaming ball-it was some four feet in diameter—revolved ceaselessly, like a lesser planet spinning on its axis. Its motion created a faint humming sound, and the light of the one shaded lamp in the place glittered upon it strangely as it spun.
The ceiling of the room presented a uniform surface of aluminium, of which metal it appeared to be composed. The small uncurtained windows were set so high that no view of the interior could be obtained from any point in the neighbourhood. Three of the walls, including that against which was set a glass-topped laboratory table, were furnished with cases; and these cases, in addition to numerous phials of chemicals, contained perhaps the most unique and horrifying collection ever gathered together beneath one roof.
Here were hideous implements of sacrificial magic; the head of a nameless monstrosity possessing a horn in the centre of its forehead and the features of a Mongolian satan, preserved in a large jar—locks of hair covering a wide range of colour, and each lock stretched tightly between golden hooks in a little ebony box.
In a sort of coffin-shaped casket, of some wood black with antiquity and roughly carved in crude, prehistoric characters, lay a woman's arm and hand. A plate-glass lid had been fitted to the casket, presumably rendering it air-tight. But no process of mummifying known to medical science or the archæologist could account for the exquisite whiteness of that rounded, severed limb. The long, taper fingers rested upon the black wood caressingly. The nails had the pink tinge of youth and health. It might have been the hand of some dainty lady of to-day except that those pink nails were curiously blunted and uncared-for.
Suspended within a sort of aluminium tripod hung a crystal chalice. The top was closed and sealed and the chalice seemed to contain faint green vapour. Within this vapour, invisibly suspended or floating, appeared a human heart. It was beating with perfect regularity.
In a case in the eastern corner of the room rested an exact model of Stonehenge. Above it were a series of lamps controlled by a small switchboard. They were various-coloured, and so placed that, with the room in darkness, it would have been possible to reproduce in miniature the effect of sunlight or of moonlight upon this model of the ancient British temple.
At so late an hour few vehicles passed along the Lane below. Rare sounds penetrated to the place, but in muffled form. So that save for the whirring of the great globe there was silence in this laboratory above Park Lane.
At the table a man sat absorbed in an experiment. He wore a loose black robe which enveloped him from neck to feet, thin rubber gloves upon his hands, and a glass mask upon his face. He was bent as if with age or great weariness, and his movements, though silent, and directed by an obvious intensity of purpose, suggested high nervous tension.
In a test-tube a deep red liquid was bubbling above the flame of a burner. Now, the man withdrew it and held it up before the shaded lamp. He watched it intently, second after second. As it cooled, it grew deeper in colour, and when it had assumed a dark purple hue he placed it quickly in a little rack. Grasping two pieces of flex hooked to a fitting upon the table, he plunged them into the liquid so that the naked wires touched. There was a sharp crackling sound, and a little puff of steam arose.
Feverishly the man in the glass mask uncorked a small flask containing an opaque fluid resembling liquid gold. His hand shook, but by an effort of will he steadied it. Then—one, two, three drops he added to the contents of the test-tube, which, now, had become perfectly black. He replaced the stopper in the little flask.
Then, taking the tube from the rack, he held it up again to the light of the lamp. No visible change took place. But, minute after minute, he watched, sitting motionless, stooped.
Finally he stood up, uttering a groan like that of a dying man, and, raising the test-tube above his head, he dashed it on the tiled floor and ground the fragments beneath his heel. Exhaustion followed. He dropped back into the chair and lay still—still as one dead.
At last, very slowly, he began to move again. From a shelf near the table he took a flask containing a small quantity of the red fluid which so curiously resembled blood. He selected a clean test-tube and filled it. There was a bare sufficiency of the viscous liquid, and he seemed to be stricken by fear of a third failure; for he had already failed twice.
With a hand which he vainly sought to steady he held the tube above the burner, moving it in slow circles within the tongue of fire. Presently faint wreaths of steam arose; then the liquid began to boil. At the moment that it came to boiling point he withdrew it and raised it to the light, watching the changes of colour until the hue of dull purple proclaimed itself. Then he placed the tube in the rack, paused a moment, as if nerving himself for the task, and, seizing the electric wires, joined them in the tube.
Came again the crackling and puff of steam. He reached for that little flask which contained mysterious liquid gold, and, in removing the stopper, almost upset it. He averted catastrophe in the nick of time, but lay back shaken with a storm of trembling. This he conquered by a second desperate effort, succeeded in steadying his hand, and now added not three but four golden drops to the black liquid in the tube.
He did not watch for the result, but, restoppering the flask, stood up, stoopingly, opened a safe buried in the wall, right of the stairs, and locked the flask within it.
Then—slowly—slowly—he turned and looked toward the tube in the rack. The lamplight shone down upon it. One glance he cast at its contents, and instantly, weirdly, an exultant, muffled cry, more animal than human, sounded from beneath the glass mask. He grasped the tube; he held it up in a hand grown steady as that of a carven figure.
The fluid was black no longer! It was seething and moving insidiously, pulsing as though with some strange spiritual life. It had now assumed the colour of a very dark sherry; and, as he watched, exulting, gloating over it, it grew lighter and ever lighter; until at last this strange action within the liquid ceased, and what remained in the tube—for it was greatly diminished in quantity—resembled a tiny drop of pale cognac.
From a drawer in the table the masked man took out a small graduated bottle, and, using a glass funnel, poured the contents of the test-tube into it. He corked the bottle and set it upon the table before him.
He pressed an electric button, and above the dull humming sound of the ever-revolving globe rose the purr of an electric fan. The masked man moved a lever controlling the windows, and when he judged the air to be clear of whatever fumes he feared he stopped the fan, reclosed the windows, and standing up, removed his mask.