The Secrets of Dr. Taverner (5 page)

"I do not," said Taverner, "for they would have made a better
job of it. Whatever may be said against their morals, they are not
fools, and know what they are about. No, some person or group
of persons who dabbles in the occult without any real knowledge
has got hold of that manuscript. They know enough to recognize
a ritual when they see it, and are playing about with it to see
what will happen. Probably no one would be more astonished
than they if anything did happen.

"Were the ritual confined to such hands as those I should not
be worried about it; but it may get into the possession of people
who will know how to use it and abuse its powers, and then the
consequences will be much more serious than you can realize. I
will even go so far as to say that the course of civilization would
be effected if such a thing occurred."

I saw that Taverner was profoundly moved. Regardless of
traffic he plunged into the roadway, making a bee-line for his
rooms.

"I would give any price for that manuscript if I could lay my
hands on it, and if it were not for sale I would not hesitate to
steal it; but how in the name of Heaven am I to trace the thing?"

We had regained the consulting-room, and Taverner was
pacing up and down the floor with long strides. Presently he
took up the telephone and rang up his Hindhead nursing home
and told the matron that we should be spending the night in
Town. As there was no sleeping accommodation at the house in
Harley Street, where he had his London headquarters, I guessed
that a night of vigil was in contemplation.

I was fairly used to these watch-nights now; I knew that my
duty would be to guard Taverner's vacated body while his soul
ranged through outer darkness on some strange quest of its own
and talked to its peers--men who were also able to leave their
bodies at will and walk the starry ways with him, or others who
had died centuries ago, but were still concerned with the welfare
of their fellow men whom they had lived to serve.

We dined at a little restaurant in a back street off Soho,
where the head waiter argued metaphysics in Italian with
Taverner between courses, and returned to our Harley. Street
quarters to wait until the great city about us should have gone to
sleep and left the night quiet for the work we were about to
embark upon. It was not till well after midnight that Taverner
judged the time was suitable, and then he settled himself upon
the broad consulting-room couch, with myself at his feet.

In a few minutes he was asleep, but as I watched him I saw
his breathing alter, and sleep gave way to trance. A few muttered
words, stray memories of his previous earthly lives, came from
his lips; then a deep and sibilant breath marked a second change
of level, and I saw that he was in the state of consciousness that
occultists use when they communicate with each other by means
of telepathy. It was exactly like "listening in" with a wireless
telephone; Lodge called to Lodge across the deeps of the night,
and the passive brain picked up the vibrations and passed them
on to the voice, and Taverner spoke.

The jangle of messages, however, was cut off in the middle
of a sentence. This was not the level on which Taverner meant to
work tonight. Another sibilant hiss announced that he had gone
yet deeper into the hypnotic condition. There was a dead
stillness in the room, and then a voice that was not Taverner's
broke the silence.

"The level of the Records," it said, and I guessed what
Taverner meant to do; no brain but his could have hit upon the
extraordinary scheme of tracing the manuscript by examining
the subconscious mind of the human race. Taverner, in common
with his fellow psychologists, held that every thought and every
act have their images stored in the person's subconscious mind,
but he also held that records of them are stored in the mind of
Nature; and it was these records that he was seeking to read.

Broken fragments of sentences, figures, and names, fell from
the lips of the unconscious man, and then he got his focus and
steadied to his work.

"Il cinquecento, Firenze, Italia, Pierro della Costa."4

came a deep level voice; then followed a long-drawn out
vibrating sound halfway between a telephone bell and the note
of a `cello, and the voice changed.

"Two forty-five, November the fourteenth, 1898, London,
England."

For a time there was silence, but almost immediately
Taverner's voice cut across it.

"I want Pierro della Costa, who was reborn November the
fourteenth, 1898, at two forty-five a.m."

Silence. And then Taverner's voice again calling as if over a
telephone: "Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!" Apparently he received an
answer, for his tone changed. "Yes; it is the Senior of Seven
who is speaking."

Then his voice took on an extraordinary majesty and
command.

"Brother, where is the ritual that was entrusted to thy care?"

What answer was given I could not divine; but after a pause
Taverner's voice came again. "Brother, redeem thy crime and
return the ritual whence it was taken." Then he rolled over on to
his side, and the trance condition passed into natural sleep, and
so to an awakening.

Dazed and shivering, he recovered consciousness, and I gave
him hot coffee from a Thermos flask, such as we always kept
handy for these midnight meals. I recounted to him what had
passed, and he nodded his satisfaction between sips of the
steaming liquid.

"The fifteenth century, Florence, Italy, Peter della Costa."

"I wonder how Pierro della Costa will effect his task," he
said. "The present day personality will probably not have the
faintest idea as to what is required of it, and will be blindly
urged forward by the subconscious."

"How will it locate the manuscript?" I inquired. "Why should
he succeed where you failed?"

"I failed because I could not at any point establish contact
with the manuscript. I was not on earth at the time it was stolen,
and I could not trace it in the racial memories for the same
reason. One must have a jumping-off place, you know. Occult
work is not performed by merely waving a wand."

"How will the present day Pierro go to work?" I inquired.
"The present day Pierro won't do anything," said Taverner,
"because he does not know how, but his subconscious mind is
that of the trained occultist, and under the stimulus I have given
it, will perform its work; it will probably go back to the time
when the manuscript was handed over to the Medici, and then
trace its subsequent history by means of the racial
memories--the subconscious memory of Nature."

"And how will he go to work to recover it?"

"As soon as the subconscious has located its quarry, it will
send an impulse through into the conscious mind, bidding it take
the body upon the quest, and a very puzzled modern young man
may find himself in a difficult situation."

"How will he know what to do with the manuscript when he
has found it?"

"Once an Initiate, always an Initiate. In all moments of
difficulty and danger the Initiate turns to his Master. Something
in that boy's soul will reach out to make contact, and he will be
brought back to his own Fraternity. Sooner or later he will come
across one of the Brethren, who will know what to do with him."

I was thankful enough to lie down on the sofa and get a
couple of hours' sleep, until such time as the charwoman should
disturb me; but Taverner, upon whom "going subconscious"

always seemed to have the effect of a tonic, announced his
intention of seeing the sun rise from London Bridge, and left me
to my own devices.

He returned in time to take me out to breakfast, and I
discovered that he had given instructions for every morning
paper and each successive edition of the evening ones to be sent
in to us. All day long the stream of printed matter poured in, and
had to be gone over, for Taverner was on the lookout for Pierro
della Costa's effort to recover the ritual.

"His first attempt upon it is certain to be some blind lunatic
outburst," said Taverner, "and it will probably land him in the
hands of the police, whence it will be our duty as good Brethren,
to rescue him; but it will have served its purpose, for he will, as
it were, have `pointed' the manuscript after the fashion of a
sporting dog."

Next morning our vigilance was rewarded. An unusual case
of attempted burglary was reported from St. John's Wood. A
young bank clerk of hitherto exemplary character, had effected
an entry into the house of a Mr. Joseph Coates by the simple
expedient of climbing on to the dining room windowsill from the
area steps, and, in full view of the entire street, kicking the glass
out of the window. Mr. Coates, aroused by the din, came down
armed with a stick, which, however, was not required. The
would-be burglar (who could give no explanation of his
conduct) was meekly waiting to be taken to the police station by
the policeman who had been attracted to the spot by the
commotion he had made.

Taverner immediately telephoned to find out what time the
case would be coming on at the police court, and we forthwith
set out upon our quest. We sat in the enclosure reserved for the
general public while various cases of wife beaters and disorderly
drunkards were disposed of, and I watched my neighbours.

Not far from us a girl of a different type from the rest of the
sordid audience was seated; her pale oval face seemed to belong
to another race from the irregular Cockney features about her.
She looked like some mediaeval saint from an Italian fresco, and
it only needed the stiff brocaded robes to complete the
resemblance.

"`Look for the woman,' " said Taverner's voice in my ear.
"Now we know why Pierro della Costa fell to a bribe."

The usual riff-raff having been dealt with, a prisoner of a
different type was placed in the dock. A young fellow, refined,
highly strung, looked round him in bewilderment at his
unaccustomed surroundings, and then, catching sight of the
olive-cheeked madonna in the gallery, took heart of grace.

He answered the magistrate's questions collectedly enough,
giving his name as Peter Robson, and his profession as clerk. He
listened attentively to the evidence of the policeman who had
arrested him, and to Mr. Joseph Coates, and when asked for his
explanation, said he had none to give. In answer to questions, he
declared that he had never been in that part of London before; he
had no motive for going there, and he did not know why he had
attempted to enter the window.

The magistrate, who at first had seemed disposed to deal
leniently with the case, appeared to think that this persistent
refusal of all explanation must conceal some motive, and
proceeded to press the prisoner somewhat sharply. It looked as if
matters were going hard with him, when Taverner, who had
been scribbling on the back of a visiting card, beckoned an usher
and sent the message up to the magistrate. I saw him read it, and
turn the card over. Taverner's degrees and the Harley Street
address were enough for him.