The Shadow (Oliver)

A Story of a Future Day By OWEN OLIVER

HERE were three of us who knew the truth about the shadow that upon the earth. God will remember that we bore the horror of it and said no word. Henryson died a week ago, and Vassall is dying. Henceforth I shall bear the burden alone; I shall walk among the men and women who are branded with the shadow, change words with them, shake hands with them, lean on them in the little things of daily life. I shall know that they will do evil and see it done. The truth will tremble on my lips, and yet they will make no sound. At least I can write it down.

It was on the 12th of March, 1907, that the explosion happened in the laboratory of John Denton, F.R.S., whom some called the greatest scientist of modern days. I was the surgeon on duty when they brought him into the hospital ward. He was unconscious from concussion of the brain and spine, and the end was only a matter of time. The papers attributed the calamity to an experiment with high explosives. That was true, so far as it went. Vassall told me the rest. He was a high official at the Home Office, and he came post haste to the hospital when he heard that Denton was there. Henryson, the specialist in "shock" cases, arrived a few minutes later. He was a friend of both, and Vassall had summoned him by telephone. They were in a state of intense excitement, though I did not judge them to be excitable men. They whispered less softly than they intended, and my ears are keen.

"I warned you both," Henryson declared. "You can't outrage nature beyond a certain point. Can you tell how far he had gone with the preparations? You've been there, haven't you?"

Vassall shook his head. "The whole house is a wreck. Even the lodge which stands a hundred yards off is damaged. Heaven grant it's all blown up; but I don't know. Will he recover consciousness?"

Henryson examined the prostrate form carefully.

"I fear so," he said at last.

They looked at one another meaningly, and then at me.

"He may say things that must not be repeated, Dr. Fielding," Vassall warned me. "There are grave reasons for silence; political reasons."

"Human reasons," Henryson corrected. "There must be no babbling nurses. We will watch him in turn, the three of us. You can manage that, Fielding?"

"I can," I said; "but I should like to know a little more about it."

Henryson looked at Vassall. "You can trust Fielding," he said; "and if you couldn't you'd have to tell him, all the same."

Vassall coughed and cleared his throat. Then he told me the story in a dry, unemotional voice, as though he were dictating an official minute.

"Dr. Denton was the inventor of the process of branding criminals by ether-rays, which excited so much controversy and finally turned out the government. They were to be marked with a shadowy letter and number, for purposes of identification, you will remember. We should have preferred to mark them obviously to warn people against them; but we conceded to popular clamor that the rays should be applied in some inconspicuous place. Personally I thought it the most valuable idea of the century. I think so still. However, the public wouldn't have it.

"Denton was grieved at the abandonment of the scheme. So was I. He was not a man who struck at trifles. Neither am I. We decided to work the process ourselves. His first idea was to brand convicts from a distance, somewhat in the manner of wireless telegraphy; but the difficulties were insuperable. So many prison officials would have had to be taken into confidence that the matter was sure to leak out. Therefore he conceived the idea of generating and loosing upon the world a large quantity of the rays, which would automatically settle upon persons of criminal intention, and brand them. I approved of this scheme. Henryson disapproved."

"It would have branded the whole world!" Henryson cried. "You and me and Fielding—all of us. Criminal intention! We all have it; but most of us fight it. Who shall say that it will prevail till it does? God and man judge us by our deeds. You promised me not to do it."

"We recognized Henryson's objection," Vassall corrected him calmly, "and promised not to use the rays until we found which would act only upon persons of marked and preponderant criminal tendencies. The original rays would mark the skin of anyone with whom they were brought in contact—good, bad, or indifferent. Denton found, however, that they could be modified so as to act only in certain cases; and that their selection of persons was governed, not by the nature of the skin, but by the temperament of the individual and the physical organization which is so closely connected with this. At last he invented a variety, which he termed the malfactory rays, having a special affinity for the criminal classes. By experiment with a dilute form, which marked temporarily and almost imperceptibly, he found that, out of 100 cases, 37 were undoubtedly criminal, 32 were probably so, 19 were doubtful, and 12 were wrongly marked, as far as we could judge. Henryson insisted that we must improve upon this result before freeing the rays, and Denton was experimenting to this end when it happened. Poor old Denton! If ever a man labored with an unselfish desire to benefit society it was he. You will help us to suppress it, Dr. Fielding, if only in the interests of other people? Suppose some unscrupulous person got hold of the idea, for example."

"I will help you to suppress it," I agreed, "in the interest of other people; not from sympathy with you or the injured man. I consider the project a diabolical one."

We arranged to watch Denton in turns, and I took the first spell. He did not stir, or open his eyes, and I fed him by injecting concentrated nourishment. Henryson relieved me at four o'clock.

"Nothing has happened," he announced with a sigh of relief.

"What did you expect to happen?" I asked.

"I didn't know. You see he had accumulated a huge amount of the rays—you can't make them in small quantities—and if they had been set loose? But I suppose they were all destroyed by the explosion. You were right when you called it a diabolical project. I ought to have stopped them."

"You really believe they could have done it?"

"I know they could. Well, well! You go and have your tea."

My tea was waiting in my little room as usual. I sipped it while I read the afternoon paper. I was pouring out the second cup when my eye caught a paragraph in leaded type, under the late news.

At Bow St. Police Court an extraordinary blackish-grey mark suddenly appeared on the face of the man Smith as he pleaded "Not Guilty" of the murder of Maude Farringdon. Her sister, who was in court, shrieked out that it was the brand of Cain. On being shown the mark in a looking-glass, Smith lost all control of himself, and called out, "I did it! I did it!" The court was adjourned for a medical inquiry into the state of his mind.

I dropped the teapot, which broke upon the table, and rushed down to Henryson. I do not recollect how I told him; but I think I could only point to the paper. I remember that he kept pacing the room and muttering, "The Judgment Day! The Judgment Day before its time. Good Lord deliver us!"

We telephoned for Vassall, but he had started before the message arrived. He brought all the evening papers. One of them had a facsimile of the mark. It was like a blotchy, four-leaved flower, like this:

"There's enough of the cursed stuff to brand all Europe," Henryson said, after a long silence.

"If it only brands murderers and evil-doers the world will be better for it," Vassall retorted. He tried to speak confidently, but his voice shook.

"It won't," Henryson cried. "You know it won't, Vassall. There will be the doubtful cases; and the cases of those who are innocent. Suppose it marks some of your own friends? Your mother, your sister, the little niece you are so fond of, who is just going to be married?"

"Don't," Vassall cried suddenly. "Don't!" He put up his hands as if to shut some sight from his eyes. "The explosion must have destroyed most of it. A stray ray has escaped, that is all. Send a boy to get the next edition, Fielding. Whew! It's hot."

It was a cold day for March, but he mopped his forehead.

There were three more cases in the next edition. A lawyer of repute had been marked as he sat in his office, advising a company promoter about a prospectus. His client was marked also. A lady living in Cromwell Road, South Kensington, had gone out shopping at noon, and arrived home at three. She did not know that she was marked till the housemaid opened the door. She had been hysterical since, and could give no account of her movements.

The following edition reported twenty cases. The last edition gave nearly a hundred. All sorts and conditions of people were attacked, and under every variety of circumstances. Two low women were marked as they fought in a courtyard, and two society ladies as they whispered scandal over afternoon tea; a missionary as he visited in a slum, and a brute as he kicked his wife; an employer as he gave witness against an embezzling clerk, and the clerk as he stood in the dock; a prominent member of the Stock Exchange as he closed a deal, and a Cabinet minister as he answered a question in the House. One or two of the victims had almost lost their reason with fright.

"They must have intended doing—something," Vassall said; "but we don't know that they would have done it." He had altered his tone since Henryson suggested that his own friends might be attacked.

"The evil that will come would have come anyhow," Vassall persisted. "You would only add to it. Some of those who are branded may repent. Some of them may be quite innocent. Some of them may be your friends, and Fielding's, and mine. You shan't do it, Henryson."

"I will," Henryson shouted. "I shall go and tell the police, the press—everybody."

He made for the door; but Vassall seized the poker from the fender and sprang toward him. He stopped suddenly, dropped the poker, and stood pointing with a shaking hand to the looking-glass. A blurry, shadowy black, four-leaved shape had come upon his forehead. He swayed a little, and I took his arm and helped him to a chair.

"Mark or no mark, Vassall," I said, "here's my hand."

Henryson paused with his hand on the door-handle, and looked at us both over his shoulder. His face twitched.

"The mark ought to have fallen on me," he said in a slow, hushed voice. "You were right, Vassall. I swear by the shadow to keep silence."

Three hundred cases were reported in the morning papers, and the leading articles discussed the matter at length.

"They must have meant to do something," Henryson stated; "but Heaven knows if they would have done it. They are entitled to the benefit of the doubt."

"They will do it," Vassall said. "We shall see if we watch them. We can't help watching them. If only we didn't know."

"Isn't there any remedy?" I asked. My voice sounded listless. I hadn't slept all night.

"If there is, only one man can find it." He jerked his hand towards the unconscious man on the bed. "Can't you doctors bring him to for a moment? Henryson? Fielding?"

We shook our heads. We could only wait for nature. Interference meant death.

About this time one of my fellow doctors suggested to me a connection between the shadow and Denton's experiments. It was common gossip at the clubs, he said.

The next morning the rumor was in the papers. A mob howled around the hospital in the afternoon. The following day there was a larger mob, but it was kept back by a couple of dozen policemen. Vassall had obtained them through the Home Office. He sat beside the unconscious man with a revolver in his pocket. Henryson and I had revolvers too. We always carried them now.

In the afternoon the mob threw things and broke some of the windows, but fortunately they had no great supply of missiles. Then they threatened to lynch Denton, and made some ugly rushes. The police had to take refuge within the hall, and we barricaded the place as well as we could, but the mob brought straw and tar-barrels and threatened to burn the building. Vassall addressed them from a window, and reminded them of the harmless and helpless patients, but they only hissed and howled at him. They were an evil-looking set of ruffians, and most of them were marked upon their faces with the shadow. We stood at a side window with our revolvers, ready to shoot anyone who tried to fire the pile, and ultimately some troops arrived from Chelsea Barracks and dispersed the crowd. Vassall proposed to make a clean breast of everything to the prime minister in the morning, and ask for a permanent guard. Denton must he saved, he said, if it took all the troops in the kingdom. He was the only man who could dispel the shadow, if he could.

In the night Denton recovered consciousness for a few moments. Vassall told him what had happened, and asked if the shadow could be removed, and he nodded feebly. Hut when we asked how it was to be done he could only mutter incoherently. He made signs for writing materials, but after he had scrawled a few rambling marks on the paper the pencil dropped from his hands. Then he died.

To mingle with the people who were not marked unnerved me even more. I felt that I was a traitor who had not warned them against the evil in their midst, though Heaven knows I did it for the best—I feared them, too, suspecting that they were marked in some hidden place. So I dropped away from my friends, till at last I mistrusted all men; and all women—but one.

The one was Margaret Landon; and she was the reason why I did not run away from the world, like Henryson and Vassall. We had been friends for three years, and we were growing better and better friends. We knew what it would come to, but we were both busy with our work (she was an artist) and had not hurried the inevitable. Now, however, that the shadow had come, I wanted to shield her from the evil that I could not warn her against. About a fortnight after Denton died I called at her house and proposed to her. She accepted me very frankly.

"You have made me very happy," she said. "Do you know, I have been foolish enough to wonder if you liked someone else better. You seem to have changed so lately. You have been worrying about something, haven't you? Tell me about it, dear."

"I have been overworked," I apologized, "like most doctors. That is all. Well, I have been worried. It is—the shadow that has come upon the world."

"Is that all? I shouldn't trouble too much about that, dear. It is distressing, of course, if it shows, and if people mind it. Some call it a beauty spot, you know. It's becoming quite fashionable. In Paris they are beginning to wear shadow patches. Would you like me to wear one?"

She glanced up at me with her eyes laughing teasingly. She looked very young that afternoon, almost childish.

"Don't jest about it, Margaret," I begged. "It is horrible—horrible. You don't understand."

"Horrible?" she shivered and held my arm a little closer. "Is it anything bad, Fred? Anything that would make you feel differently to—to anybody? If I were marked?"

"Don't," I said sharply. "Don't speak of such a thing. It wouldn't mark you because—" I stopped quickly.

"Because your skin is too fair," I said. I had to say something. "It is nothing really, Margaret—just a foolish prejudice of mine. Humor me, there's a good girl. I dare say I am unreasonable; but I hate hate it!"

She drew her hand from mine and looked at me strangely.

"I am sorry that you hate it, dear," she said quietly. "So very sorry. I could cover it skilfully with my paints; but I'd rather hurt you than deceive you—and perhaps you love me more than you hate the mark." She drew her sleeve back a few inches from her wrist, and there I saw—what I saw! Merciful God, don't let me think of it! I shall go mad—mad! I stared at it and made no sign.

"It makes no difference to my love of you," she whispered pleadingly. Her eyes were moist and shining.

I did not decide for myself between Margaret and the shadow. The room seemed whirling around, and I could not think for myself. They fought it out between them in my mind; and Margaret won. I raised the slim, white wrist to my lips and kissed the disfiguring mark; and then she lost her calm and flung herself into my arms. I caught a glimpse of my face in a mirror, looking over her fair hair. It was working horribly. I wondered if I had gone mad, or was going. When I got back to the hospital I fainted, and they told me I must take a complete rest. So I went away.

I spent a week with Vassall. He was almost worn out from his unceasing labors in the laboratory, but brave and cheerful. He intended to devote his life to finding a way of obliterating the shadow, he declared, and when I retorted that the memory would remain, he said that no one had any right to remember the intention of evil, when no evil was done. "I bear the brand of Cain," he said, "but I am not a murderer. The mark makes me charitable toward men, because I misjudged Henryson. I would kill him rather than let him ruin the world by divulging the secret."

"Sometimes I think I shall have to divulge it or go mad," I confessed.

"Then go mad," he said, setting his lips squarely.

That was the conclusion of all our discussions. We could not lift the evil from the world, and by disclosing it we should only make others suffer as we suffered. Therefore we must suffer alone.

When I left Vassall I went on to Henryson. He had taken to mission work in a low slum, crowded with marked men and women, and had turned his house into a refuge for them, hoping to keep a few from doing the evil that they intended. About three per cent. of "his poor people" were wrongly marked, he thought. "And none of them are wholly bad," he protested. "The shadow has taught me a lesson, Fielding. You will not be so unhappy if you learn it too. It is to look for the good in people as well as the evil. The shadow isn't so terrible when you do that." Like Vassall, he was cheerful; but he had aged greatly, and he was troubled with a cough that seemed to tear him to pieces.

"But I do not matter," he said, "or you. It is these poor people that we must think of, and those on whom they prey. Let us give our all—our lives, if need be—for the world."

It did me good to be with these men; and I went back to my work determined to look for the good in those who were branded with the evil. Instead of avoiding them I made friends with them; and if I could not trust them, I acted as though I could. But some of them cheated me, others robbed me. Two made a murderous assault upon me, and I was laid up for a fortnight.

After this my horror of the shadow and those who bore it grew deeper and deeper.

I shuddered with dread of Margaret even, when we were alone; but she was good to me; so very good to me, and I loved her. Nothing could alter that. When I was about again, after my injury, I asked her to name the day for our wedding. She hid her face on my shoulder and whispered it. I was glad she did not look at me.

It is within a week now; and I love her above all things; and I am sick with fear of her. There is no one to help me, no one to take counsel with. Henryson died a week ago, and Vassall is dying. They called it brain fever and overwork, but it was the horror of this cursed thing that killed them—the horror of it.

Day by day I see the warning of the evil to come; and day by day I see the evil come after the warning. It is I who am branded with the brand of Cain; for I know and I make no sign. If I do not speak I shall go mad; and the world will go mad if I speak. Well, I will not speak. They kept the secret and died; and so will I

I am feeling very ill to-night, and my temperature is high. It is the beginning of a fever, I think—I must destroy what I have written, so that no one shall see it if I die. Where was I?—Oh! The shadows.—They are all over the paper, you know. They—

I remember that the world reeled away from me as I was finishing the story that I had written. The world sprang back on me suddenly in a private ward of the hospital. At first it was only a window-frame and painted walls, and an ache at the back of my head. Then I began to recollect; and then I saw Margaret. I knew that a long time had passed, because she had grown so thin and pale. She was dressed all in white, with a gold brooch that I gave her at her neck; and I gave a little cry of delight, because she was such a fair thing to see. Then I remembered the shadow and tried to cover my eyes; and she saw that I was awake, and bent down over me and kissed me, and cried a little, very softly. I liked her to kiss me, even if she bore the shadow, and I smiled, and tried to speak; but the sound would not come at first.

"You must keep very quiet, dear," she warned me. "Don't try to talk."

"I must," I protested feebly—my voice seemed to come from a long way off. "The paper that I wrote. Where is it, Margaret? The paper?"

"All your papers are in your room, dear. It is locked and I have the key. Now you must go to sleep. You can trust me, can't you?"

"The key," I said. "The key! Give it to me!"

She brought the key and put it under my pillow. Then she kissed me again, and I went to sleep. Whenever I woke I felt for the key. It was always there, and I got slowly better. She was very gentle with me, and humored me in everything; and the doctor said that she had saved my life. "You would have worn yourself out with your ravings," he said. "She is a good woman, Fielding; and you are a lucky man."

"A good woman," I echoed; but the memory of the blurry shadow on her wrist came up with my memory of Margaret. I set my teeth and put the shadow against Margaret, and Margaret against the shadow; and Margaret won.

"Roll up your sleeve, dear, and let me look at the shadow," I asked when she came in. There was a pink rose on her breast, and another in her hair, and the roses were coming back to her cheeks, and her eyes were soft and shining. She was as fair as—she is. There is nothing else like her.

"You are not strong enough to bear a shock yet, dear," she said.

I laughed, and my laugh had a ring for the first time since Denton came to the hospital.

"All the shadows in the world cannot shock me if they are on you," I told her, "my dear!"

She sat down beside me, and stroked my hair for a while before she answered.

"There is no shadow upon me any more," she said slowly, "or on anyone. The mercy of God that blots out our transgressions!"

"There is no shadow on my heart," I said boldly, and I raised myself on one arm and put the other round her. "Only a great white thought of you, sweet Margaret."

"You do not even ask how the shadow came," she asked, with a great light in her eyes.

"I do not care," I told her. "You are—you."

She laughed a little and cried.

"I am yours—not so good as I would wish to offer you. But it was because—I loved you so much," she said. "When you changed at that time I thought you cared for—someone else. There was a bad rumor about her. I did not believe it; but I meant to tell it to you. That was how the shadow came. But—" she lifted her head proudly—"I never told you, dear—We are not just one mean or evil deed that we plan; not all the mean and evil things that we plan. They are only the shadows—Our tears wipe them out, and the memory of them—God sets white marks for the good that we do—Hark!"

She rose and opened the window. A sound of music and singing came in, and the ringing of church bells and the scent of flowers. The sunlight played in her hair; and she lifted her arm like a saint pointing up the long, long way to Heaven.

"It is a day of thanks for those who bore the shadow and are clean," she said. "They do not know what it meant. We shall never let them know. They will have no memories to hurt. We shall remember—and honor those who wore the mark of their temptation and did no wrong.—Dear love, it is a world of temptation and ill-resolve; but God gives us strength to overcome."

"Margaret," I cried, "Margaret." I struggled to rise, but could not; and she flew into my arms.

"You shall give me a little white flower," she whispered, "to wear hidden on my arm—for token of the love of a brave man that keeps a woman good."

But I gave her a little black misshapen flower, uncertain of outline as the shadow had been, and told her to wear it that all might see. The sun shines brightest where the shadow has been!