Many Dimensions - Charles Williams (books for 9th graders TXT) 📗
- Author: Charles Williams
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foot-and-mouth disease.”
Reginald made an effort at recovery. “Yes,” he answered rather
quaveringly, “yes, of course I see that. It made me feel funny
somehow.
But—yes, of course. It’ll save any difficulty about chipping the
original, and they’ll look much better—much. Can I leave them here
to-night?”
“Why, you’re scared out of what wits you’ve got,” Sir Giles said. “What
about you, Arglay? Will you have one?”
“No,” Lord Arglay said soberly. “I think not; not to-night. I feel
rather
as if I’d been scared out of what wits I’d got, and was just getting
over
it. If I were you, Reginald, I should think a great many times before I
started that transport scheme of yours.”
“Eh?” said Reginald. “But surely Sir Giles is right? This’ll make it
even easier.”
“Just as you like,” Lord Arglay said. “I think I will go now, Tumulty.
I should like to come and see it again soon, if I may.” Sir Giles
nodded casually, and as casually bade his visitors good-night.
On the way back to town Lord Arglay said very little, and ignored
Reginald’s occasional outbreaks of mingled hope and nervousness. He
found himself wishing Chloe Burnett had not gone; he would have liked
to have
his own silence buttressed by another instead of harassed by a futile
and spasmodic volubility. His mind gazed blankly at the riddle of the
three Stones in an awe which he usually kept for Organic Law. There
must be some conclusion, he felt, but he couldn’t think—not yet.
“—pay even more,” he heard at his side and drove faster. “Is there no
intelligent creature about?” he thought. “I wish that girl hadn’t—no,
perhaps it’s as well. Damn it, I’m muddled.”
He reached his house almost at the same time that Chloe by a slower and
longer method came to her own, full of similar half-conscious anxieties
and alarms. She found, opened, and read a couple of letters that
awaited
her, and realized when she had finished that she knew nothing of their
contents, and did not particularly want to know. She put down the New
Statesman in its place on the table, took off her things, and looked
vaguely round the room. It was here then that Lord Arglay had been
during
that unbelievable and terrifying disappearance; to this the Crown of
Suleiman had transported him. The Crown of Suleiman…. the Lord Chief
Justice. Chloe Burnett. It might have happened but she didn’t believe
it; at least, except that she couldn’t disbelieve in that sharp spasm
of fear. She moved towards a chair and noticed, with a slight
annoyance,
that she had forgotten to shake the cushions up when she left the house
that evening. Or had another visitor-? Chloe dropped into the chair
where Lord Arglay had sat and burst
into tears.
THE TALE OF THE END OF DESIRE
When Miss Burnett arrived at the Chief Justice’s house the next
morning she found him reading his correspondence in a perfectly
normal way. He
looked up to welcome her and considered her carefully. “No worse?” he
said. “Good night? Well, you missed something even more eerie.”
“O Lord Arglay! Nothing happened?”
“Something happened all right,” Arglay answered, and his face grew
grave.
“Up to last night,” he went on, “I thought Giles was monkeying about
with something, and playing tricks on Reginald for some infernal reason
of his own. But I don’t know now; I really don’t. He didn’t seem to
expect what did happen.”
“But, Lord Arglay! What did?”
The Chief Justice told her. Chloe sat gazing at him. “It multiplies
itself?” she breathed. “But it must be somethingmagical, then.
Something
unnatural.”
Arglay shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that,” he answered. “Atoms do
it, or electrons, or something. But I admit to having a nasty jar when
I
saw the three things all exactly alike. Somehow the sight of Reginald
producing stones of Suleiman ben Daood at the rate of two a minute with
a chisel—it didn’t seem decent. “
“That,” Chloe said with conviction, “is what I felt; that’s why I ran
away. Lord Arglay, could…” she hesitated, “could those
letters be real?”
“If they are, if the Stone is,” the ChiefJustice said, “it looks as if
it were real in another manner—more or less real than we are. No,
that’s absurd, of course. There can’t be degrees in Reality. But we
know that we can pass through space by its means—we both know that—and
I
have seen what was one become two, and then three, and lose nothing in
the process. And now this morning…” He gave her a letter, and she
read—
“Foreign Office,
“May 10.
“My Dear Chief Justice,
“I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes to-day, and if so whether
you would mind ringing up and making an appointment. Nothing to do
with you directly, but the fact is we have been approached—very
tentatively—on a little matter relating to your brother-in-law Sir
Giles Tumulty. And as, on the few occasions when I’ve met him, he
always seemed to me rather a difficult man to deal with, I thought my
way might be smoother if I could have a chat with you first. Pray
forgive me for troubling you.
“Yours very truly,
“J. BRUCE CUMBERLAND.”
Miss Burnett looked up. “You think it’s the same thing?” “
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Lord Arglay answered. “Of course it may not be.
Giles always seems to be conducting several lines of research at once,
some perfectly harmless and one or two perfectly loathsome. But the
F.O. has had trouble with him once or twice before—obscure troubles no
one seemed to know the rights of, except Giles who (it is said) was the
proximate cause of one Secretary’s resignation. I don’t wonder Bruce
Cumberland hesitates to tackle him.”
“Who is Mr. Cumberland?” Chloe asked.
“One of the smaller great guns there,” Arglay told her. “A Permanent
Official in many impermanent offices. But I’ve rung up already and
made an appointment for twelve. I want-”
There was a tap at the door and a maid came in. “Sir Giles Tumulty
would like to see you, my lord,” she said.
“Sir Giles-? O bring him in, bring him in,” Arglay said and met the
visitor at the door. “Hallo, Tumulty, what brings you here so early?”
he asked.
Sir Giles came briskly in, threw Chloe a glance, and sat down. “Three
things,” he said. “My house was burgled last night, I’m going to
Birmingham to-day, and I want to warn you, or rather other people
through you.”
“Burgled?” Arglay said. “Casually or deliberately? And by whom, or
don’t you know?”
“Of course I know,” Sir Giles said. “It’s the Embassy people; I
shouldn’t be a bit surprised to find Ali Khan did it himself. I’m only
surprised they didn’t try to tackle me. They did it pretty well on the
whole, felt under my pillow while I was trying not to snigger, and went
all over the study, got what safe there is open, and made very little
noise. I dare say I shouldn’t have heard them if I hadn’t been awake.”
“Did they get what they wanted?” Arglay asked.
“Get it?” Sir Giles almost shrieked. “Do you suppose, Argllay, that
any
set of half-caste earthworms would find anything I wanted to hide? No,
they didn’t. Suleiman and I are going off to see Palliser at
Birmingham
to-day. But I thought I’d leave one of those little fellows with you
and one with Reginald. I’ve dropped his in on him and here’s yours.” He
pulled one of the Stones from his pocket and threw it on to the table.
“
And now for the warning. You’re mixed up with a Whitehall crowd
of simians, Arglay, and for all I know, the Persians may be trying to
pull the strings they dance to. if you hear anything about it, tell
them to be careful. For if they try to get the Crown out of me they’ll
get more than they want. Tell them if they give me any trouble I’ll
make enough Stones to build a wall round London. I’ll sell them
at two penny to the children in the streets. I’ll set up a Woolworth’s
to show nothing but Stones. The whole population of this blasted
sink you call London shall be playing hop-scotch with them. I’ll give
them relics enough, and you tell them so. I’ve written to Ali Khan
warning him and referring him to you for confirmation.” He started to
go, and stopped. “O and if they try and get me knocked on the head
that won’t help. For I’ll leave it in proper keeping and I’ll have a
mausoleum of relics built over@ me. So they know.”
With which Sir Giles flung out of the room, but he was back again
before
Lord Arglay could say more than “Cheery creature! “
“My own advice to both of you,” he said, “is to say nothing at all
whatever leprous hooligan from the Foreign Office or the Embassy you
may be pestered with. You play your office, Arglay, and Miss Burnett
can play her sex. justice and innocence, that’s your line, though I
don’t suppose either of you’s ither.”
He was gone again, this time for good, and they heard the front door
close.
“Giles always reminds me of the old riddle,” Lord Arglay said in a
moment. “Would you rather be more abominable than you sound or sound
more abominable than you are? The answer is I would rather be neither
but I am both. And now what do we do?” He looked at his watch. “I go to
the Foreign Office,” he said, and considered. “I think, Miss Burnett,
if
anyone comes from the Persian Embassy you had better see them. Don’t
know anything; just be obliging. I’ve asked you to take any message
that
comes, to interview any callers that sort of thing. Lord Arglay was
particularly anxious—you know. I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to cut
adrift altogether, but there’s Bruce Cumberland, and, as a matter of
fact, I’m horribly curious. Well, I’ll go. I’ll tell them to show
anyone from the Embassy in to you. Goodbye, and good luck. I shall be
back to lunch.”
“They may want you to lunch at the Foreign Office,” Chloe suggested.
“Then I shan’t,” Lord Arglay said firmly. “We must talk the whole thing
over. O and this?” He picked up the Stone. “I think this shall go in
my private safe upstairs. Goodbye. You might sort out the notes for
the next chapter of Organic Law. “
Chloe did her best, but even the thesis of law as a growing and
developing habit of the human mind, with its corollary of the
distinction between organic consciousness expressed in law and
inorganic rules imposed from without, failed to hold her. It might be
true that the whole body of criminal law was by its nature, inorganic,
which was the point the Chief Justice had reached, though whether in
agreement or opposition she had no idea, but she could not keep her
mind away from what seemed an organism of unexpected power. “It must be
alive,” she found herself saying, and went on to ask herself, “But then
does it know? Does it know what it does and what we do to it? Who ever
heard of a living stone?” She went on, nevertheless, thinking along
that road. “Does it know what Mr. Montague is doing with it? What else
can it do? and can it do anything to us?”
The maid came in. “A gentleman from the Embassy is downstairs, Miss
Burnett,”
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