The Terror: A Mystery Read online

  CHAPTER V

  _The Incident of the Unknown Tree_

  Dr. Lewis, smiling indulgently, and quite prepared for some monstrouspiece of theorizing, led Remnant into the room that overlooked theterraced garden and the sea.

  The doctor's house, though it was only a ten minutes' walk from thecenter of the town, seemed remote from all other habitations. The driveto it from the road came through a deep grove of trees and a denseshrubbery, trees were about the house on either side, mingling withneighboring groves, and below, the garden fell down, terrace by greenterrace, to wild growth, a twisted path amongst red rocks, and at lastto the yellow sand of a little cove. The room to which the doctor tookRemnant looked over these terraces and across the water to the dimboundaries of the bay. It had French windows that were thrown wide open,and the two men sat in the soft light of the lamp--this was before thedays of severe lighting regulations in the Far West--and enjoyed thesweet odors and the sweet vision of the summer evening. Then Remnantbegan:

  "I suppose, Lewis, you've heard these extraordinary stories of bees anddogs and things that have been going about lately?"

  "Certainly I have heard them. I was called in at Plas Newydd, andtreated Thomas Trevor, who's only just out of danger, by the way. Icertified for the poor child, Mary Trevor. She was dying when I got tothe place. There was no doubt she was stung to death by bees, and Ibelieve there were other very similar cases at Llantarnam and Morwen;none fatal, I think. What about them?"

  "Well: then there are the stories of good-tempered old sheepdogsturning wicked and 'savaging' children?"

  "Quite so. I haven't seen any of these cases professionally; but Ibelieve the stories are accurate enough."

  "And the old woman assaulted by her own poultry?"

  "That's perfectly true. Her daughter put some stuff of their ownconcoction on her face and neck, and then she came to me. The woundsseemed going all right, so I told her to continue the treatment,whatever it might be."

  "Very good," said Mr. Remnant. He spoke now with an italicimpressiveness. "_Don't you see the link between all this and thehorrible things that have been happening about here for the lastmonth?_"

  Lewis stared at Remnant in amazement. He lifted his red eyebrows andlowered them in a kind of scowl. His speech showed traces of his nativeaccent.

  "Great burning!" he exclaimed. "What on earth are you getting at now?It is madness. Do you mean to tell me that you think there is someconnection between a swarm or two of bees that have turned nasty, across dog, and a wicked old barn-door cock and these poor people thathave been pitched over the cliffs and hammered to death on the road?There's no sense in it, you know."

  "I am strongly inclined to believe that there is a great deal of sensein it," replied Remnant, with extreme calmness. "Look here, Lewis, I sawyou grinning the other day at the club when I was telling the fellowsthat in my opinion all these outrages had been committed, certainly bythe Germans, but by some method of which we have no conception. But whatI meant to say when I talked about inconceivables was just this: thatthe Williams's and the rest of them have been killed in some way that'snot in theory at all, not in our theory, at all events, some way we'venot contemplated, not thought of for an instant. Do you see my point?"

  "Well, in a sort of way. You mean there's an absolute originality in themethod? I suppose that is so. But what next?"

  Remnant seemed to hesitate, partly from a sense of the portentous natureof what he was about to say, partly from a sort of half-unwillingness topart with so profound a secret.

  "Well," he said, "you will allow that we have two sets of phenomena of avery extraordinary kind occurring at the same time. Don't you think thatit's only reasonable to connect the two sets with one another."

  "So the philosopher of Tenterden steeple and the Goodwin Sands thought,certainly," said Lewis. "But what is the connection? Those poor folks onthe Highway weren't stung by bees or worried by a dog. And horses don'tthrow people over cliffs or stifle them in marshes."

  "No; I never meant to suggest anything so absurd. It is evident to methat in all these cases of animals turning suddenly savage the cause hasbeen terror, panic, fear. The horses that went charging into the campwere mad with fright, we know. And I say that in the other instances wehave been discussing the cause was the same. The creatures were exposedto an infection of fear, and a frightened beast or bird or insect usesits weapons, whatever they may be. If, for example, there had beenanybody with those horses when they took their panic they would havelashed out at him with their heels."

  "Yes, I dare say that that is so. Well."

  "Well; my belief is that the Germans have made an extraordinarydiscovery. I have called it the Z Ray. You know that the ether is merelyan hypothesis; we have to suppose that it's there to account for thepassage of the Marconi current from one place to another. Now, supposethat there is a psychic ether as well as a material ether, suppose thatit is possible to direct irresistible impulses across this medium,suppose that these impulses are towards murder or suicide; then I thinkthat you have an explanation of the terrible series of events that havebeen happening in Meirion for the last few weeks. And it is quite clearto my mind that the horses and the other creatures have been exposed tothis Z Ray, and that it has produced on them the effect of terror, withferocity as the result of terror. Now what do you say to that?Telepathy, you know, is well established; so is hypnotic suggestion. Youhave only to look in the Encyclopaedia Britannica' to see that, andsuggestion is so strong in some cases as to be an irresistibleimperative. Now don't you feel that putting telepathy and suggestiontogether, as it were, you have more than the elements of what I call theZ Ray? I feel myself that I have more to go on in making my hypothesisthan the inventor of the steam engine had in making his hypothesis whenhe saw the lid of the kettle bobbing up and down. What do you say?"

  Dr. Lewis made no answer. He was watching the growth of a new, unknowntree in his garden.

  * * * * *

  The doctor made no answer to Remnant's question. For one thing, Remnantwas profuse in his eloquence--he has been rigidly condensed in thishistory--and Lewis was tired of the sound of his voice. For anotherthing, he found the Z Ray theory almost too extravagant to be bearable,wild enough to tear patience to tatters. And then as the tediousargument continued Lewis became conscious that there was somethingstrange about the night.

  It was a dark summer night. The moon was old and faint, above theDragon's Head across the bay, and the air was very still. It was sostill that Lewis had noted that not a leaf stirred on the very tip of ahigh tree that stood out against the sky; and yet he knew that he waslistening to some sound that he could not determine or define. It wasnot the wind in the leaves, it was not the gentle wash of the water ofthe sea against the rocks; that latter sound he could distinguish quiteeasily. But there was something else. It was scarcely a sound; it was asif the air itself trembled and fluttered, as the air trembles in achurch when they open the great pedal pipes of the organ.

  The doctor listened intently. It was not an illusion, the sound was notin his own head, as he had suspected for a moment; but for the life ofhim he could not make out whence it came or what it was. He gazed downinto the night over the terraces of his garden, now sweet with the scentof the flowers of the night; tried to peer over the tree-tops across thesea towards the Dragon's Head. It struck him suddenly that this strangefluttering vibration of the air might be the noise of a distantaeroplane or airship; there was not the usual droning hum, but thissound might be caused by a new type of engine. A new type of engine?Possibly it was an enemy airship; their range, it had been said, wasgetting longer; and Lewis was just going to call Remnant's attention tothe sound, to its possible cause, and to the possible danger that mightbe hovering over them, when he saw something that caught his breath andhis heart with wild amazement and a touch of terror.

  He had been staring upward into the sky, and, about to speak to Remnant,he had let his eyes drop for an instant. He looked down towards
thetrees in the garden, and saw with utter astonishment that one hadchanged its shape in the few hours that had passed since the setting ofthe sun. There was a thick grove of ilexes bordering the lowest terrace,and above them rose one tall pine, spreading its head of sparse, darkbranches dark against the sky.

  As Lewis glanced down over the terraces he saw that the tall pine treewas no longer there. In its place there rose above the ilexes what mighthave been a greater ilex; there was the blackness of a dense growth offoliage rising like a broad and far-spreading and rounded cloud over thelesser trees.

  Here, then was a sight wholly incredible, impossible. It is doubtfulwhether the process of the human mind in such a case has ever beenanalyzed and registered; it is doubtful whether it ever can beregistered. It is hardly fair to bring in the mathematician, since hedeals with absolute truth (so far as mortality can conceive absolutetruth); but how would a mathematician feel if he were suddenlyconfronted with a two-sided triangle? I suppose he would instantlybecome a raging madman; and Lewis, staring wide-eyed and wild-eyed at adark and spreading tree which his own experience informed him was notthere, felt for an instant that shock which should affront us all whenwe first realize the intolerable antinomy of Achilles and the Tortoise.Common sense tells us that Achilles will flash past the tortoise almostwith the speed of the lightning; the inflexible truth of mathematicsassures us that till the earth boils and the heavens cease to endure theTortoise must still be in advance; and thereupon we should, in commondecency, go mad. We do not go mad, because, by special grace, we arecertified that, in the final: court of appeal, all science is a lie,even the highest science of all; and so we simply grin at Achilles andthe Tortoise, as we grin at Darwin, deride Huxley, and laugh at HerbertSpencer.

  Dr. Lewis did not grin. He glared into the dimness of the night, at thegreat spreading tree that he knew could not be there. And as he gazed hesaw that what at first appeared the dense blackness of foliage wasfretted and starred with wonderful appearances of lights and colors.

  Afterwards he said to me: "I remember thinking to myself: 'Look here, Iam not delirious; my temperature is perfectly normal. I am not drunk; Ionly had a pint of Graves with my dinner, over three hours ago. I havenot eaten any poisonous fungus; I have not taken _Anhelonium Lewinii_experimentally. So, now then! What is happening?'"

  The night had gloomed over; clouds obscured the faint moon and the mistystars. Lewis rose, with some kind of warning and inhibiting gesture toRemnant, who, he was conscious was gaping at him in astonishment. Hewalked to the open French window, and took a pace forward on to the pathoutside, and looked, very intently, at the dark shape of the tree, downbelow the sloping garden, above the washing of the waves. He shaded thelight of the lamp behind him by holding his hands on each side of hiseyes.

  The mass of the tree--the tree that couldn't be there--stood out againstthe sky, but not so clearly, now that the clouds had rolled up. Itsedges, the limits of its leafage, were not so distinct. Lewis thoughtthat he could detect some sort of quivering movement in it; though theair was at a dead calm. It was a night on which one might hold up alighted match and watch it burn without any wavering or inclination ofthe flame.

  "You know," said Lewis, "how a bit of burnt paper will sometimes hangover the coals before it goes up the chimney, and little worms of firewill shoot through it. It was like that, if you should be standing somedistance away. Just threads and hairs of yellow light I saw, and specksand sparks of fire, and then a twinkling of a ruby no bigger than a pinpoint, and a green wandering in the black, as if an emerald werecrawling, and then little veins of deep blue. 'Woe is me!' I said tomyself in Welsh, 'What is all this color and burning?'

  "And, then, at that very moment there came a thundering rap at the doorof the room inside, and there was my man telling me that I was wanteddirectly up at the Garth, as old Mr. Trevor Williams had been taken verybad. I knew his heart was not worth much, so I had to go off directly,and leave Remnant to make what he could of it all."