Grey Face/Chapter 16

REPNIAK Stood at the end of the room before blue velvet curtains embroidered with white peacocks. It seemed to Carey that at last the showman was frankly revealing himself. Yet there was more in this madness than the caprice of a vulgarian newly enriched. He watched the man closely as the chatter of conversation died away. He became absorbed as in the action of some powerful, mysterious drama. Then:

"My dear friends," Trepniak began, "I have been challenged. Mrs. Lewisham has succeeded in convincing Lord Evershead"—glancing rapidly in that nobleman's direction—"that three weeks ago miracles were performed in this room. His lordship is naturally skeptical, and has called upon me to make good Mrs. Lewisham's words. This, I fear, I cannot do. There are no such things as miracles, but there is Science; and one who has made Science his mistress may demand from her phenomena seemingly miraculous. If I have any mission in life it is to show that nothing is impossible. But I ask you to remember that I only seek to amuse. It is my privilege, since you are my guests. I make no claims. I have no cause to urge. There are those who sit in darkness around a table calling for raps and movements. When they get them, they say, 'The spirits are here.' Voices speak; and they say, 'It is Uncle John. It is Cousin William.' I ask for no darkness, no tables, no rappings, no mediums. I, too, will call up voices, but, though you may recognize them, do not, I beg of you, say 'it is Uncle John, it is Cousin William.' It will not be; it will be illusion. To-day a man may sit in London and talk to a man in New York. It is not a miracle, but it is an illusion—an illusion of Science. It is done by machinery, machinery made with human hands. One day it will be done by the most perfect machine in the world—a machine not made by human hands: man's brain."

Trepniak bowed and the curtain was silently opened behind him revealing a small inner room flatly draped with white peacocks upon blue velvet. It was unfurnished except for a large brass bottle of peculiar shape which stood upon the dark blue carpet. Trepniak took up this bottle and threw back the stopper, which was hinged.

"I admit that I am a conjurer and not a wizard," he said. "I should like everyone to examine this vessel."

He handed it to the yellow-faced butler, and it was carried around the room.

"Please tell us its history," Mrs. Lewisham cried. "Is it very old?"

"Ah!" Trepniak performed one of his quick gestures. "Its history I am not prepared to tell you. I am so sorry."

"Oh, how disappointing!" Mrs. Lewisham exclaimed.

Madame Sabinov, lying back in her cushioned seat, did not even remove her cigarette as Carey rapidly examined the bottle. It appeared to be of Indian ware although it possessed unusual features. Finally, it was returned to Trepniak; and, setting it down upon the carpet:

"This," he said, "is my receiver. In one important respect it is superior to any other in existence. Thus, if you wish to hear the President of the United States speaking in Washington, you shall hear him. He is only a few thousand miles away. But also, if you wish to hear Cicero speaking in the Roman Senate, you shall do so; for he is only two thousand years away."

"I shall try to prove to you that what has been, is. Here, in London, New York is not speaking when you hear New York. New York has spoken. You listen to what is past. Indeed, the speaker may be dead before his words reach you. It is a question of adjustment. Savonarola is not speaking; but Savonarola has spoken. He spoke into Nature's transmitter—the air."

He paused, searching the room with his strange eyes, challengingly; but there was absolute silence. He continued:

"I have said that I am not a wizard, and so the power of my receiver is limited by the present state of my knowledge. You may listen to someone who died last night, but you can only hear what he actually said before he died. You may listen to what Sun Yat Sen said in China last April. Thus I can go back, as I have said, to Cicero, and further, considerably further. Space I have quite conquered. I can speak to Australia. Time, I have partially conquered; and dimly, very dimly, I can get the music of the Eleusinian Mysteries at the opening of the Temple of Ictinus. Ladies and gentlemen, make your choice. Sometimes I shall fail, as the most perfect receiving set fails; but often I shall succeed."

Trepniak's request was not complied with. Some there were who thought him mad, some who thought that he jested. Collectively, his audience was staggered. Therefore:

"Allow me to encourage you," said Trepniak. "There are those present, I know, to whom the voice of His Majesty the King is familiar. I shall now reveal a secret of Buckingham Palace. You shall listen to his reception of the first Labour Cabinet ever formed in this country."

The silence in that saloon grew so intense as to remind Carey of the stillness in the heart of the Great Pyramid, but it was charged with human thought. It was electrical; it was unforgettable.

The room overlooked Park Lane, although this fact was concealed by its distorted appointments, but Sunday in London is a muted day, and few sounds rose from the Lane to break that quite peculiar stillness.

Trepniak placed the brass bottle in front of him, looked around for a moment and then, stooping, slowly raised the lid. Somewhere, apparently among the company, a voice began to speak—and suddenly, at the back of a group far down the room, a man stood up. A while the courteous voice went on, a little tired, a little hesitant; then, stooping again, Trepniak closed the lid of the bottle. Instantly the voice ceased, cut off in the middle of a sentence.

Trepniak looked around him again challengingly.

"Forgive a seeming discourtesy," he said, "but those words were not meant for your ears nor for mine. I think"—fixing his gaze upon the man who had stood up at the end of the room—"there is someone here who recognized them."

"I recognized them," came the answer. "They were His Majesty's words. I was present. It was the King's voice!"

Silence fell again. And:

"This first simple experiment," Trepniak continued, "was intended to establish my bona-fides, since, in the case of more remote calls, no such check will be possible. I shall ask you now to be very silent. You will be rewarded by hearing one of the most glorious hymns ever composed by man."

His request was obeyed. Carey imagined that he could hear his heart beating. Madame Sabinov laid her cigarette in an ash tray.

Amid this intense hush Trepniak stooped again, paused curiously, and then a second time raised the lid of the brass bottle. As if coming from some little distance away, from another room or from the Lane outside, a high, sustained tenor note sounded sweetly, and ceased. Upon it followed a strange harmony of stringed instruments, a purposeful but unfamiliar chord of music. The golden voice was heard again, the same open vowel, the same sustained note, and again came the interval chord struck upon many strings.

But now, exquisite in its unfamiliar beauty, so that tears leapt to the eyes of many who listened, came a choir of women's voices, pure as a running stream, singing in a time to have baffled any living musical director, yet surely, flawlessly. The voices died away, like music borne upon a breeze, until only one sustained the strange melody. Under it, a murmurous accompaniment, ran the notes of reed instruments. The tenor voice joined it. Both ceased; and a harmony of strings closed the passage.

A silent interval, then, as the dream of some great musician transmuted into sound, came a mighty chorus, triumphant, exultant, of a quality unknown to the laws of modern music, swelling to an almost insufferable grandeur, and finishing upon a note of majesty which seemed to reach to Carey's very soul and to shake it like a reed.

Trepniak was standing upright, facing his audience again.

"The Hymn to the Rising Sun," he said, "sung in the great Temple of Thebes on the morning that Seti the First came to the throne of Egypt, thirteen hundred and sixty years before Christ."