Page:Weird Tales volume 24 number 03.djvu/97

368 standards. He might be trained, and taught to perform certain tasks, much in the same manner as an intelligent dog goes through certain tricks. More than that, he might be capable of having certain fixed and elementary ideas instilled into him by simple repetition; for later on I had good reason to know that he possessed an unusually retentive memory. But beyond that, and as far as original and self-conscious thought and reasoning were concerned, his mind was an absolute blank. And as I realized the fact, I knew that here was the very servant I had been praying for—strong, willing, docile, and no more capable of understanding the work on which I was engaged than was a horse or a dog.

SAT up late that night, watching Jake sleeping curled up on the floor in front of the fire, debating with myself whether I should turn him over to the military authorities or keep him myself. In the end I decided that he would be serving his country more effectively by doing the menial work of Moor Lodge than by endangering his own life, and the lives of all around him, by handling a loaded rifle and experimenting with Mills's bombs. In the morning I put the matter to him, and he was only too glad to stay with me. He soon picked up the routine of his simple duties, and for a time all went well. My experiments proceeded apace. I succeeded in isolating the missing element and gasefying it in a form that could not be detected when mingled with the ordinary atmosphere. Complete success was within my very grasp when I was brought up short by an unexpected and disquieting discovery.

"You must understand that I had never attempted to keep Jake confined to the house—indeed, I doubt whether he would have obeyed me had I forbidden him to leave it. I had provided him with a suit of clothes such as might be worn by a lad working on a farm, and he was accustomed to spend his hours off duty roaming freely about the Moor. One evening he came home at dusk, after having been absent most of the day, took off his coat, and began to sweep out the laboratory where I was still working. At first I took no notice of him, but presently I began to see that he was not giving much attention to what he was doing. Every now and then he would stop sweeping and furtively take something from his trousers pocket, glance at it, polish it on his sleeve, examine it again, and then transfer it to his pocket and go on sweeping. Secretly amused, I watched his antics for a while out of the corner of my eye, and when he was admiring the thing for the umteenth time, I purposely made a sudden movement. Jake tried to conceal his treasure, but in his hurry to replace it in his pocket the thing slipped out of his hand, falling on the stone floor with a jingle that was unmistakable. It was a brightly polished five-shilling piece.

"'Hullo, Jake,' I laughed. 'I didn't know you were a moneyed man. Where did you get that from? Have you been robbing a bank or something?' For I knew well enough that he had not had any money when he arrived.

"Instead of saying that he'd found it—which I quite thought he had—he jibbed at my question and stood silent, his hands fumbling with the broom-handle while he shifted his feet uneasily, the very picture of conscious guilt.

"'Where did you get that money from?' I repeated more sternly. 'Did you steal it?'

"He bridled up at that. 'Jake is not a thief!' he declared, looking me full in the face.

"'Then where did you get it from?' W. T.—6