The Secrets of Dr. Taverner (13 page)

"He is interested in occultism, but I should not imagine that
he would ever train in anything; he is nothing but a dabbler."

"Then he is not very likely to be able to perform a mental
assassination. Thought transference requires more effort than
swinging a sledge hammer. If you are ever offered your choice
between being an occultist and a blacksmith, choose the lighter
job and enter the forge rather than the Lodge.

"Well, you suspect Irving? As you say, there is no evidence
to hang a cat, but we will put him through the sieve and see what
he yields Did he become very intimate with old Mr. Burmister's
heirs after the wills became known?"

"No more so than usual, they are a united family and always
saw a lot of each other The only thing that Irving ever did that
was out of the ordinary was to decorate their rooms for
them--he has a wonderful taste in colouring-- but then he did
that for a good many of us, and designed the girl's dresses, too.
He is an extraordinary chap, who makes a hobby of that sort of
thing; he knows all the out-of-the-way shops where you can get
queer brands of coffee and cigarettes, and restaurants where you
can get weird food. It has always seemed to me the sort of thing
for a woman rather than a man to be interested in."

"Ah!" said Taverner, "he designed their rooms Now that is a
peculiarly intimate thing to do--the man who designs the place
you live in can exercise a great influence over your life if he
knows how to make use of his opportunities. But before we go
any further afield, try and think if there was anything of any sort
that the dead men had in common and the living ones have not
got, any mode of life, possession, peculiarity--anything in fact,
that differentiated them."

Polson racked his brains for several minutes

"The only thing I can possibly think of," he said at length, "is
a particular kind of scent that Irving manages to get hold of and
gives to his particular friends He makes a great mystery of it, but
then he loves making mysteries about nothing in particular; it
makes him feel important."

"Come now," said Taverner, "we have struck a warm trail at
last. The psychological effect of scents is very great; what has
our friend been playing at with his mysterious smells?"

"I don't know," said Polson; "he probably gets it at the
Stores. He had some wonderful tea once that was supposed to
come direct from Lhassa, and we found a Lyons' label round it.
He is that sort of chap."

"But what about this scent? Did he give it to each of the dead
men and to none other?"

"He used to give it to his particular pals as a special favour.
His great wheeze was to get those big poppy heads the chemists
sell for making poultices, paint them all sorts of Futurist colours,
stuff them with potpourri and fix them on the end of strips of
pliable cane. They really look very well in a vase, like great
gaudy flowers. He gave me a bunch once, but I wasn't honoured
with the sacred perfume that he has in his own quarters; but
Percy (one of the boys who was dead) had some, and he has
given Tim a bunch. I am not sure whether they are scented or
not."

"Then the best thing you can do is to go round to your
cousin, get hold of those poppy heads, and bring them to me to
have a look at."

Polson sallied forth on his mission, and as the door closed
behind him, Taverner turned to me.

"You see," he said, "the advantage of intuition. Poison had
nothing whatever to go on, but he instinctively distrusted Irving;
when he begins to suspect foul play, he proceeds to
countercheck his intuitions by observation, which is a peculiarly
effective method of work, for you will see how the use of the
intuition is able to point out a profitable line of observation and,
by means of the subtlest and most elusive of subjective clues,
lead us to what promises to be solid ground. We must see what
evidence the poppy heads yield, however, before we begin to
theorize. There is nothing so misleading as a preconceived
opinion; one is very apt to twist the facts to fit it."

We went on to other cases, and had got to the end of our
appointments when the butler informed us that Mr. Polson had
returned and would like to see us again. He was ushered in,
bearing a long parcel in his hand, his eyes bright with
excitement.

"Tim has been given the special scent," he cried as soon as
he was inside the door.

"How did you manage to obtain possession of the poppy
heads? Did you tell him why you wanted them?"

"I told him I wanted to show them to a friend. It was no use
worrying him until we have something definite to go on, or he
might commit suicide by sheer autosuggestion."

"Wise man!" said Taverner. "You have read to some
purpose."

Poison unrolled his parcel, and laid half-a-dozen
gorgeously-colored poppy heads on the desk. They looked like
wonderful tropical fruit, and certainly formed an acceptable
present. Taverner examined them one by one. Five of them
yielded nothing to his probing save a shower of fine black seeds,
but the sixth exhaled a curious heavy perfume, and rattled when
shaken.

This poppy head," said Taverner, "is going to meet with an
accident," and he crashed a paper weight down on it. Out on the
blotter rolled three or four objects that looked like dried raisins,
and most curious of all--a fair sized moonstone.

At the sight of this we exclaimed as one man. Why should
anyone place a gem worth several pounds in the inside of a
poppyhead where it was never likely to be seen? Taverner turned
over the black objects with his pencil.

"Scented seeds of some sort," he remarked and handed them
to me. "Smell them, Rhodes."

I took them in my hand and sniffed them gingerly. "Not bad,"
I said, "but they are slightly irritating to the mucous membrane;
they make me feel as if I were going to sneeze, only instead of
the sneeze coming to anything, the irritation seems to run up into
my head and cause a peculiar sensation as if a draught of cold air
was blowing on my forehead."

"So they stir up the pineal gland, do they?" said Taverner. "I
think I can see some method in the gentleman's madness. Now
take the moonstone in your other hand, go on sniffing the seeds,
look at the moonstone, and tell me the thoughts that come into
your head, just as if you were being psychoanalysed."

I did as I was instructed.

"I think of soapy water," I began. "I think my hands would be
improved by a wash. I think of a necklace of my mother's. I
think this stone would be very hard to find if I dropped it out of
the window. I wonder what it would be like to be thrown out of
the window. I wonder what it would feel like to be thrown from
a height? Does one--?"

"That will do," said Taverner, and took the moonstone away
from me. I looked up in surprise, and saw that Polson had buried
his face in his hands.

"My God!" he said. "And I used to play with that boy!" I
looked from one to the other of my companions in surprise.

"What does it all mean?" I asked.

"It means this," said Taverner. "Someone has hit upon a
singularly ingenious way of bottling psychism. A man who is
incapable, by reason of his lack of development, of doing mental
work on his own account, has found a way of buying occultism
by the ounce. There must be a factory where they are turning out
this precious product, and where an unscrupulous scoundrel like
Irving can go and buy two-penn'orth and bring it away in a
paper bag."

I had always understood that occult work could only be done
by men of unusual natural gifts who had devoted long years to
their development, and this idea of taking your turn at the
counter and buying the hidden powers like acid drops tickled my
fancy. It was only the expression on Polson's face that prevented
me from bursting out laughing. But I saw what deadly
possibilities were latent in the plan that Taverner had outlined so
grotesquely.

"There is nothing original in this scheme," said Taverner. "It
is simply the commercial application of certain natural laws that
are known to occultists. I have always told you that there is
nothing supernatural about occult science; it is merely a branch
of knowledge that has not been generally taken up, and which
has this peculiarity, that its professors do not hasten to publish
their results. This exceedingly clever trick of the moonstone and
the scented seeds is simply an application of certain occult
knowledge for the purpose of crime."

"Do you mean," said Poison, "that there is some sort of
mental poison inside that poppy head? I can understand that the
smell of those seeds might affect the brain, but what part does
the moonstone play?"

"The moonstone is tuned to a keynote, and that keynote is
suicide," said Taverner. "Someone--not Irving, he hasn't got the
brains--has made a very clear mental picture of committing
suicide by flinging oneself from a height, and has impressed that
picture (I won't tell you how) on that moonstone, so that anyone
who is in close contact with it finds the same image rise into his
mind, just as a depressed person can infect others with
depression without speaking one single word to them."

"But how can an inanimate object be capable of feeling
emotion?" I inquired.

"It couldn't," said Taverner, "but is there such a thing as an
inanimate object? Occult science teaches that there is not. It is
one of our maxims that mind is entranced in the mineral, sleeps
in the plant, dreams in the animal and wakes in the man. You
have only to watch a sweet-pea tendril reach out for a support to
realize that the movements of plants are anything but
purposeless, and the work connected with the fatigue of metals
is well known Ask your barber if his razors ever get tired, and he
will tell you that he rests them regularly, because fatigued steel
will not take a fine edge."

"Granted," I said. "But do you mean to tell me that there is
sufficient consciousness in that bit of stone to be capable of
taking in an idea and transmitting it to someone's subconscious
mind?"

"I do," said Taverner. "A crystal is the highest development
of the mineral kingdom, and there is quite enough mind in that
stone on the table to take on a certain amount of character if a
sufficiently strong influence be brought to bear upon it.
Remember the history of the Hope diamond and various other
well-known gems whose records are known to collectors. It is
this mental development of crystals which is taken advantage of
in the making of talismans and amulets for which the precious
stones, and next to them the precious metals, have been used
from time immemorial. This moonstone is simply an amulet of
evil."

"Taverner," I said, "you don't mean to tell me that you
believe in charms?"

"Certainly! Don't you?"

"Good Heavens, no, not in this enlightened age!"

"My dear boy, if you find a belief universally held
throughout all ages by races that have had no communication
with each other, then you may be sure that there is something in
it."