Grey Face/Chapter 18

OR instance," said Sir Provost Hope, "the Athenæum, for a hundred years sacred to the lords of creation, now bows to a feminist age and we behold the phenomenon of a Ladies' Night."

Muir Torrington laughed in his sudden, boisterous fashion, and one member who had dined with Charles Dickens turned round and endeavoured to obtain a better view of his features. Torrington's bump of veneration was not conspicuous, but Provost Hope knew the real worth of the man, and could afford to overlook his obvious peculiarities.

"Whenever I find myself puzzled," he continued, "by a man's symptoms, I invariably seek another opinion."

"Indeed," said Torrington; "whose opinion?"

"The opinion of the woman he is in love with. It is a policy as ancient as civilization, Torrington. If for some reason history had failed to record the existence of Cleopatra, for instance, what could we have made, now, of the tragedy of Mark Antony? I sent Jasmine down to my sister's place in Surrey because I believed that the author of Carey's extraordinary experiences was in love with, or at least infatuated by, my daughter."

"You hoped to draw him?" suggested Torrington.

"Yes," Sir Provost nodded. "But I have failed. No fewer than twelve men of her acquaintance have either called or telephoned to enquire what has become of her, but although I 'phone her every evening, only two of the twelve, I learn, have got as far as Low Ketley."

"Do I know them?" Torrington asked.

"Young Baxter is one," Sir Provost answered, "Lord Amberley's younger son, and the other is Dugdale, whose father was at Edinburgh with me."

"Ah!" said Torrington, "good, harmless lads. Yes, you have failed, as you say. Of course, you understand why Carey has kept away. Those two are just crazy about one another; I have watched them together. There has been a misunderstanding—she has sent him off with a flea in his ear; and it's just a question of which holds out the longer, his Irish vanity or her Scottish pride."

Sir Provost laughed heartily but silently. Then:

"A Scotsman spoke there, Torrington!" he declared. "I like your nice discrimination. However, what you say is substantially true. This does not worry me. But more and more my attention is being drawn to the man Trepniak. You have told me things which simply cry out for enquiry. I have heard other things even stranger, but at second hand. The result of the post mortem on this woman in Limehouse is not known yet, I take it?"

"Not yet," Torrington answered. "I am watching that case very closely."

"I gather," said Sir Provost, "that since Carey deposited the ebony Buddha at his bank, which I believe you told me he had done, there has been no recurrence of the trouble of which he complained?"

"None," was the reply. "This sort of thing baffles me entirely. How by all that's holy a little figure can send a man to sleep and while he is asleep make him do things of which he's unaware when he wakes up, passes my comprehension. But I am open to learn, and certainly, Sir Provost, your diagnosis appears to have been correct. I have urged Carey to cultivate Madame Sabinov and to find out, if possible, where this figure came from, assuming, of course, that she really left it in his rooms."

"And has he done so?"

"I can't say," Torrington returned, "I haven't seen him for a day or so. But I rather gathered from a remark of yours at dinner that the mysterious Madame Sabinov had been to consult you?"

"She has," Sir Provost answered. "But in one respect she remains as mysterious as ever."

"Really!" Torrington bent forward, keenly interested. "And did she allow you to 'put her to the question'?"

Sir Provost smiled.

"She came to me for hypnotic treatment," he replied, "yes."

"And was it successful?"

"Only partially. She is a woman of personality, possessed of a powerful will, and therefore her submission was complete. Well—" he looked around him and drew his chair closer to that occupied by Torrington—"it appears to me that we are in this thing together, therefore let us pool our knowledge, compare notes, and see what we can make of it all."

The psychologist closed his eyes for a moment, a familiar mannerism, mentally reviewing the facts which he had learned from Madame Sabinov during the time that she had submitted herself to hypnotic examination.

Her history was strange enough. Famous in three capitals for her beauty, Madame Sabinov owed her existence to the infatuation of an Austrian Archduke for a lovely Georgian, an exquisite flower nurtured in the harem of Abdul Aziz, but cast out upon the callous stream of life when the assassination of that Sultan broke up his household. Orphaned in infancy, the reputed adventures of the woman now known as Poppaea Sabinov qualified her for a niche in the history of the great courtesans.

Her marriage to Count Michael Sabinov, a brilliant cavalry officer attached to the staff of the Grand Duke Nicholas, might have ended her adventures, for it was a love match, but Fate, who has many uses for beautiful women, stepped in. Her husband disappeared in the Russian débâcle, and, as had been the lot of her mother before her, she found herself cast upon the world with nothing but her beauty to barter.

It was an asset which led her from splendour to splendour, capital to capital. Immoral, in the real sense of the word, she was not. Similarly circumstanced, almost any woman so nurtured, and endowed with her attributes, might have followed a like course. All these things, in his quest for the source of the influence of which his patient complained. Sir Provost had learned. But he did not choose to impart them to Torrington. Therefore:

"I gathered many things about her," he said, opening his eyes and regarding the other in that searching, disconcerting way which even Torrington could never suffer unmoved. "Madame Sabinov has strength of character. She also has beauty, but in no greater degree than many women who are wholly uninteresting. She is, of course, an unusual type, and because of this and of her outstanding personality, fables have grown up respecting her life. That she lives luxuriously, I do not doubt. That she has sinned against the ordinary code of morals, I do not deny. But the thing which is of interest to both of us is this: I had no difficulty whatever in getting her to answer my questions respecting her early life. My first difficulty occurred in questioning her about Paris, where she seems to have lived for some time before she came to London."

"You mean," Torrington suggested, "that she would not answer?"

"I mean nothing of the kind," was the reply; "I mean that she could not answer. Torrington, in this respect the case was unique. She was absolutely passive, as completely under my control as any patient I have ever treated. Yet, on certain points—and the first of these arose when my questions approached her life in Paris—she was silent. I could feel, literally feel another will imposing silence upon her. Realizing this, I almost forgot my patient for a time. It developed into a battle of wills; but I was defeated. I had to withdraw."

"Why?" Torrington" asked eagerly.

"Well"—Sir Provost hesitated—"the woman's sanity was at stake. The human brain is the most delicate machine of which we have knowledge. One cannot make it a battle-ground with impunity. Therefore I accepted defeat and awakened her."

"I take it she was unconscious of all that had happened?"

"Perfectly," Sir Provost replied. "She was merely anxious to know one thing."

"What was that?"

"The one thing I had failed to learn. You see, Torrington—and here our mystery deepens—Madame Sabinov had come to me because she had recognized the presence of this control, this tremendous control with which I came in conflict when I endeavoured to question her about her Paris life."

"Then do I understand," said Torrington amazedly, "that she is a victim and not an agent of the enemy?"

Sir Provost shook his head blankly.

"I don't know," he replied. "A willing victim becomes an accomplice. Madame Sabinov is a clever woman. I am not satisfied that her consulting me was voluntary, or that her reason for doing so was the reason which she gave. Torrington"—he rested his hand upon the other's knee—"we must stand together, all of us. There is some power very closely allied to Hell actively at work in London."