The Green Overcoat/Chapter 13

work of the Sunday had tired Professor Higginson. He did not know that glory could weary man so much.

He rose very late upon the Monday morning: he rose certainly without ambition, and almost without fear. He was dead beat. By the time he had breakfasted it was noon. He had no class on Monday. In the early afternoon he was due at the Council of the University. He remembered the agenda, more or less. He had to talk particularly about those Saturday lectures. He hated them—but first of all he must ring up his colleague Garden, who was with him in the matter.

Garden had the the telephone—sensible man! But Garden wouldn't allow his number in the book. … It was? … It was 37 something? … Wait a minute! Professor Higginson remembered a scrap of paper with a memorandum. That had the number. He had put it down last Monday on a scrap of paper after the Senate meeting for just that occasion, to ring up Garden before the Council.

He had a good memory. He prided himself on that. He clearly remembered jotting the number down on a scrap of University paper in the Senate room. It was the meeting before he went to Perkin's—just before his troubles began!

Professor Higginson felt for that scrap of paper intuitively in the watch pocket of his waistcoat. He could carry such things there for days. It was not in the watch pocket of his waistcoat.

He searched in all the pockets of the suit he was wearing. One puts things which one is in the habit of carrying instinctively into a pocket, and one often does not remember when one did it—especially if one is given to lapses of The Primary Consciousness and Subliminal Thingumbobs!

By a process only too familiar to the less fortunate members of the professional classes, he fingered carefully every edge of the pocket lining until he found a large hole, whereat he as carefully explored all the vague emptiness of the lining beneath, and as he explored it he began to worry, for there was nothing there. Then the Professor of Subliminal Psychology suddenly remembered! He had taken it out when he dressed that evening for Perkin's. He had put it on to the dressing table. He remembered the white paper on the white cloth, and he remembered telling himself not to forget it. He had put it into the pocket—the waistcoat pocket—of his one evening suit.

He went through that one suit very thoroughly. He found nothing. He thought he might have dropped it when he last changed. He stretched upon the floor and, lighting matches with infinite difficulty, he peered under the bed and under the wardrobe, examining every inch of the worn Brussels carpet. Not a scrap of paper appeared.

Then—suddenly—he got a touch of nausea. It was borne in upon him more and more certainly that the last time he had carried that memorandum—and worn that suit—was at Perkin's party, and the days that followed and the nights. That bit of paper must have dropped during one of his struggles or one of his athletic feats in the Accursed House! That gave the matter a very new importance. If that ill-omened scrap were still in the empty house! … Worse still, supposing someone had found it? … It was a clue.

Professor Higginson lost no time. He took the tram, and when he reached the end of it, with infinite precautions of looking to right and left, pretending to go down side lanes, lingering at gates, he managed at last to comfort himself with the assurance that no one watched him—as indeed no one did. Every inch was, for him, alive with spies, and he exaggerated the importance of his movements, for he was a Don.

An hour or so after he had left the town he saw the neglected shrubs, the rotting gate, the beweeded gravel path; and, standing up gaunt and terrible before him, the Accursed House within its wasted grounds.

He went up stealthily to the door. It was locked. Still gazing over his shoulder with nervous precaution, he made an effort to find some postern, but the high wall was blind everywhere, and the courtyard at the back was enclosed upon all sides.

With a confused but terrible recollection of some tag which tells us that no man falls at once to the lowest depths of turpitude, and with a sigh for the relic of his honour, he tried one of the great front windows. It was fast.

Then Lucifer once again inspired that unhappy man with cunning beyond his own. He whipped out a pocket-knife, opened the thin blade, inserted it in the crack of the sash and began to tamper, yes, to tamper, with the catch. He felt it giving, as he pushed gently and with infinite care lest any sound should betray him, when his heart suddenly stopped beating, and his blood ran dead cold, at the sound of a voice just behind him delivering this summons—

"What yer at?"

He dropped the knife and leapt round. A sturdy fellow, short and thick-set, clothed in old bargee trousers and a pea-jacket, and with that face of labour which the police call "villainous" in their reports, was watching him unmoved.

"What yer at?" repeated the badly-shaven lips.

"I—I was making an experiment," said Professor Higginson at random.

"Yer was," said the thick-set man, and spat. "And now yer 'll cut."

Professor Higginson was dignified.

"My good man," he said

"None o' that," said the good man, advancing his face in an ugly fashion; "I 'll let yer know I 'm the caretaker. Ook it. If there was a copper in this Sahary Desert I 'd put him on yer for a twofer."

Now a "twofer" is an insignificant cigar, of which two are sold for a penny; but though Professor Higginson did not know this, he understood the general drift of the remark, and he slowly began to edge away.

"I 've a mind," said the pea-jacketed one, following him growling to the gate, "to tell Mr. Kirby."

"Mr. who?" said Professor Higginson eagerly.

"Mr. Kirby," repeated the man, sullenly. "It's his job this house is."

Professor Higginson felt in his trouser pocket and produced a florin. The caretaker took it, though it only confirmed his suspicions.

"Is that the name of the agent for this house? Could I get an order from him? I want to look for—I mean I want to get inside!"

"Yus! Yer do!" said the man. Then: "That 's the name of Mr. Kirby, and if yer 've sense yer 'll get to his orfices afore me."

It was a plain hint, but Professor Higginson was not grateful. He was considering what advantage this information was to him, and as he slowly considered it he at last clearly grasped that advantage. He would be back at that house within three hours: back with the key and an order to view. And it would go hard with him if he did not find that dangerous scrap of paper. He had not wasted his florin.

"Thank you," he said rapidly, and was gone.

He reached the tram again before it was mid-afternoon. Once in the town he looked up a directory in a shop, found Kirby and Blake's direction, and made his way at once to that office.

Mr. Kirby had come in just an hour before. He had sat drawing caricatures on blotting-paper with stubs of pencil, or gazing at the ceiling. He had written private letters with his own hand, and addressed to people who had no known connection with the firm, and he seemed to have attached himself thus to his business premises, during that one exceptional afternoon, for the advantage of seclusion and of the telephone more than of anything else. Moreover, he had asked peevishly once or twice whether such and such a one had rung him up or called for him.

When, therefore, Professor Higginson came into the office and asked whether he could see Mr. Kirby, said the clerk to him, "Certainly, sir," and showed him into a room where bound copies of Punch and a Graphic three years old, also a list of bankrupts, beguiled the leisure of clients as they waited their turn.

"Will you send up your card?" added the clerk innocently.

"No," worried and feebled the Philosopher—he had no card—"say it is Professor Higginson, and that he wants to see Mr. Kirby most particularly."

"Is Mr. Kirby expecting you?" continued the clerk.

"How should I know?" said Mr. Higginson half savagely. And the mystified young man was more mystified still when, on giving the name to his employer, that employer jumped up and beamed as though he had been left a legacy, or had heard of a dear friend's return from the dead.

"Oh, show him up!" he said merrily. "Show him up! Show him up at once!" and the chief of that great business went half-way to the door to meet his visitor.

He took him warmly by both hands as he bade him be seated. He asked in the most concerned way about his present state of health, after the terrible adventure which was now the talk of thousands. He hoped that the heat of the room with its blazing fire was not inimical to the Professor's convalescence.

Professor Higginson was rather curt for such a genial host.

"I won't detain you, Mr. Kirby," he said, "it is very good of you to have given me a moment or two of your valuable time." He thought a moment. He was not good at plots, or rather he had had to construct too many lately in too short a time. At last he began tentatively

"Perhaps you know, Mr. Kirby—I am afraid it is widely known—in fact, you do know, for you have just told me as much—that I—that in fact I have had an unfortunate—er—lapse."

Mr. Kirby nodded sympathetically.

"Pray do not insist, my dear Professor," he murmured; "most touching, most interesting. Now with your expert knowledge of the phenomena of consciousness"

Professor Higginson interrupted.

"The point is, Mr. Kirby, that knowing you to be in touch with the—what shall I say—the residence business"

"Yes?" said Mr. Kirby, with a polite inflection.

"Well, the fact is," blurted out the Philosopher, "my case presents a point of the highest possible interest, the highest possible scientific interest, in which you might help me. It is about a house." And here the Professor stopped dead.

Mr. Kirby watched him with crossed legs, joined finger-tips, and a very hierarchical expression.

Professor Higginson continued—

"I have an instinct, purely subliminal, mind you" (Mr. Kirby nodded, but never took his eyes off the Professor's face, and the Professor's eyes on their side never left the floor), "purely subliminal, but a strong instinct that during those days I was—I saw—no, I mean I was spiritually present in a House—a sort of, well, House!" Mr. Kirby nodded again. "I—I—I had a sort of dream"

"Wait a moment, Professor," said Mr. Kirby respectfully, "we must get all this quite clear. At first I understood that your complete loss of memory involved a breach in the continuity of consciousness—a blank as it were. I read all the reports, of course" (his tone was profoundly reverent), "and I will not trespass upon sacred things. But at first there was a blank, was there not?"

Professor Higginson put on his lecturing tone. "We are using technical terms, my dear sir," he said in a somewhat superior manner, "indeed, highly technical terms. Primary consciousness I certainly lost. I think I may go so far as to say that I am unaware of any action of secondary consciousness." Mr. Kirby still nodded gravely, following every word. "But subliminal consciousness is a very different matter! That, my dear sir," continued the Professor, smiling awkwardly, "is my own department as it were. Now the subliminal consciousness is peculiarly active in dreams, and I certainly did have a very vivid dream."

"But if your memory was wrong," said Mr. Kirby with a calculatedly puzzled look, "I mean if your memory failed about it"

The Professor shook his head impatiently.

"You don't understand," he said. "Please let us be clear. There's no question of memory at all."

"Not at all, not at all," said Mr. Kirby politely, "only a dream."

"It was a vision—a high vision," said the Philosopher. "I recollect some things clearly. A sort of studio roof. A big sort of skylight window, I remember that. Now of course I never can have been in such a house," continued Professor Higginson. "It's one of the first laws of subliminal consciousness that impressions are conveyed from one centre to another, transversely as it were, and not either directly or in the ordinary line from a superior to an inferior plane. To put it conversationally, not from above to below, nor from below to above. Hum!"

"Of course!" said Mr. Kirby. "Naturally. Quite clear."

"The whole theory of telepathy depends upon that," went on Professor Higginson, glancing up cautiously at the lawyer and dropping his eyes again.

"It could depend on nothing else," said Mr. Kirby gracefully.

"Well, you see," said the Psychologist, "I wasn't in the house, that's quite certain; I had and have no objective knowledge of the house. Every psychologist of repute will bear evidence to that. It's the mere A B C of the science."

"Your reputation," said Mr. Kirby, "would weigh more than that of any colleague," and the Professor was gratified.

"You understand clearly," went on Mr. Higginson. "I never was in that house—yet I am certain such a house exists, and—well—for reasons that are very private—it is really of interest to me to discover where it may be, for though my science assures me that I had no sort of physical connection with it during that extraordinary experience, yet I am confident that its connections, inhabitants or owners, will give me a clue to what is now the chief interest of my life—and I may add, I hope without boasting, now one of the chief subjects before scientific Europe. In the interest of Science I should see that house. I should visit it … Soon. Indeed, to-day. … I wonder if you can help me? … The house looked north," he continued abruptly, shutting his eyes and groping with his hands to add a wizard effect to the jerky sentences. "There was a drive up to it with laurel bushes, a rather weedy drive. There were four stone steps to the door. I remember those steps well, and—oh! there was a lower ground-floor room with one window looking on to a backyard. If I can find that house and have an order from its owner to visit it I shall be profoundly grateful—I thought you might help me."

"I 've got it all down," said Mr. Kirby, scribbling hurriedly, "and I will certainly find it for you. The cause of Science, Professor Higginson, is a sacred cause."

"If you can!—oh! if you can get me an order now, to-day!" burst out the Professor, opening his eyes suddenly and cutting short in his desperation. "I—I—well, I should like to look over that house. It would be of the highest possible scientific interest. Can you," he added nervously, and as though he was in a hurry to catch a train or something of that sort, "can you let me have the keys—now?"

"My dear sir," said Mr. Kirby, looking up gently, "my dear sir, I really cannot yet be certain what house it may be, nor whether our firm are the agents for it, nor even whether it's to let, though I think it may be one I have in my mind."

He glanced at his notes again.

"Oh, yes, your firm are the agents," said the Professor eagerly, and then added, suddenly appreciating that he was giving himself away, "I remember receiving with extraordinary vividness during that curious vision the spiritual impress that your firm were the agents."

Mr. Kirby said nothing and looked nothing, and the Professor eagerly went on to cover his tracks—

"You must know that in these purely subliminal phenomena, there is a marvellous sense of the atmosphere, of the—er—connotations of the locality—the dream locality."

"Well," began Mr. Kirby slowly, "of course, we could not refuse you, Professor Higginson, in a matter of such high scientific importance. … We might have to get the leave of the owner, but in the normal course of things we could let you look over it, only, you see," he went on with a puzzled expression, "you really haven't told me enough to fix me yet as to what house it can be. … We have so many to remember," he mused. … "It is a peculiar sort of a house. Unfurnished, I think you said?" he continued, looking at his notes, "except on the top floor, where there was a studio. Now, Professor," and here he looked suddenly at his visitor, "can't you recollect any other detail, some sort of faint impression?"

"N—no," said Professor Higginson timidly. "You must remember the circumstances were extraordinarily"

"For instance," said Mr. Kirby imperturbably, "have you any recollection of where the bed was? Was it in a sort of little dark room beyond the studio? It is an extraordinary thing," he continued, pulling up his sock as he said it, "that one cannot keep one's sock up on one's leg without those horrible little garters, which I for one will not wear."

"Now you suggest it," said Professor Higginson slowly and with something of the feeling that a mule may have when it feels the drag on the rope, "now you suggest it I have a recollection of something of the sort. … And by the way, I seem also to remember a delicious heavenly music."

"Ah!" said Mr. Kirby, and he gazed at a point on the carpet about eleven feet away, "wonderful thing music, only seven notes, and see what a lot you can get out of 'em! I will smoke a cigar if you don't mind," and he lit one. "Now, were there three chairs in the room, and do you remember anything of a rope?" said Mr. Kirby.

"I 'm not—quite—sure—about—the rope," lied Professor Higginson, pausing between every word, "but the chairs? Ye—es! I think I did see chairs—wooden chairs."

"And was the skylight broken?"

"No—yes—possibly—very probably," floundered the Philosopher.

"Then I 've got it," said Mr. Kirby briskly, "I 've spotted it! You were quite right when you said you 'd never been there in the flesh. At least, I don't think you ever can have been there. It isn't in this town at all. It isn't in England. It 's a place my firm looks after in the Hebrides—wonderful old place, you know—deserted. A Manse it was. Now the history of that house" he was continuing volubly, when the Professor checked him.

"Not at all! Not at all!" he said angrily, "I tell you it is somewhere close by here! In Ormeston!"

"My dear sir!" said Mr. Kirby, opening wide eyes, "how can you know that a duplicate of the house I am thinking of?"

"I 've told you already," snapped Higginson. "In these visions one has connotations of atmosphere, and so on."

"Well," said Mr. Kirby, after that outburst, shaking his head slowly from side to side, "then I 'm of no use, none at all. I do know by chance that place in the Hebrides, saw it only last year. Doing it to oblige a cousin. Would have been most interesting, most interesting, if it had been that. Don't you think it could be that? They 're full of second sight in those parts."

"No," said Professor Higginson, rising with determination and in some anger, "no, I do not think it could be that."

"Well, then," said Mr. Kirby hopelessly, "I don't see how I can help you. Don't you think two connotations may have got mixed up?"

"No, I don't," said the Professor shortly, more and more possessed of the feeling that things were going wrong with him. "I don't think so. It 's impossible. These things have their laws, sir, just as nature has, I mean ordinary nature, common nature, what we—or—call Natural Laws."

Mr. Kirby nodded agreeably.

"I don't think," went on Professor Higginson, "that I ought to take up any more of your time."

"Oh, but I should particularly like to hear more," said Mr. Kirby with enthusiasm.

"I 'm afraid it 's no use," said Professor Higginson, and he made to go out.

He was actually at the door, when Mr Kirby added—

"Professor Higginson, I 've half promised some friends to ask you to dine in London after your lecture. It was a great liberty—but they knew I lived in Ormeston. I wonder whether I might presume? Shall I drop you a line? It 's the Rockingham. I might tell you something then. I might find out."

"Yes," said Professor Higginson with no enthusiasm, but he badly wanted to see that house and search it for that haunting scrap of paper, and he didn't want to lose touch with the Order to View, "yes, by all means."

"You see," added Mr. Kirby apologetically, "by the time you come to dine with me in London on Wednesday I might be able to suggest a lot of things—an almost unfurnished downstairs room with a big deal table in it, and oaken stairs, uncarpeted, and, oh! all the sort of things that you would expect in a house of that kind."

"Yes," said Professor Higginson, flabbergasted.

"Well, well," said Mr. Kirby more cheerfully, and shaking him cordially by the hand, "I won't keep you; next Wednesday in town! I 'll write!" and he sauntered back into his room.

The great Psychologist slowly paced the street outside, then despair gave him relief, and he went home to bed.