The Eater of Darkness, page 7
The girl had her lips to the phone and was twiddling a little switch back and forth.
“H’lo—Hello—H’lo. … Shipping? … Wll, is thera Rupert Pragman out there? … Yess, wll … there’s a genlmnoutere wansa see’m. … What name please? … What name please?” Charles, who had been sinking into almost dozy restfulness after his search, perceived that the girl had deflected her thin-edged voice toward him.
“Name? … Ah … Foster … ah … Foster,” he produced, and added, “From the Merchant’s Mercantile Association.”
The girl turned to the phone again. “Itsa Mister Fawster R. Fawster … yais … a awri-I …” She was looking at Charles again. “He’ll be ou’,” she promised. They donusually let tha cleyks comouthough, doorinawfisours. …”
“Oh?”
There were a few sweetish-tasting moments of waiting, then:
“Mr. Pragman, good-afternoon.”
“I—I think you must have the wrong man. I—I—” Pragman produced the words, like a magician so many rabbits, from his throat.
“Oh! No. After our little conversation of this morning, I confess, there might seem little reason for consulting you further. But our policy, sir, is Thoroughness, and we felt we could not act without seeing you again.”
“I—I—I—” he was cut off again.
“Quite! Quite!” said Charles Dograr, suddenly assuming an English accent. “If you will step outside to the corridor, where we can talk with perhaps greater freedom, I shall be glad to go further into the matter with you … (They were at the door. ‘If I go out he’ll kill me! If I don’t I’ll my [sic] job he’ll kick up a row and I’ll lose my. …’) … certain aspects of the question that are still in need of elucidation.”
Glassily moving, Rupert Pragman found they were out in the corridor. Once the door of:
Room 411
Buckeye Belt and Leather Corpn.
F. S. Knox, Prest.
had closed behind them, the disgusting man suddenly seized Pragman’s arm and burst into laughter. It was full five minutes before he could control himself, and then his words came brokenly between little hiccoughs of merriment, his voice was weak, his face suffused as of a man who has spent himself with laughing during an evening of delightful, clean entertainment at
He ceased as suddenly as he had begun.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
The abruptness of the question caught Pragman off guard. Before he could prevent himself, “97 Juniper Street, Yonkers, New York,” he had answered.
“Good!” Charles Dograr had become brisk and businesslike. “You are wondering, no doubt, why I venture to intrude myself and my affairs upon you during the busiest hours of your no doubt very fully occupied day. I shall intrude only in the extent to which these affairs concern you.”
He poked an admonitory figure against Pragman’s breast pocket and his eye hypnotically he continued. “Of the extent in which they do concern you, my dear sir, you are probably not as yet aware. It is my business to inform you.
“As for the ‘Merchants’ Mercantile Association,’ your detective instinct—which, à propos (the French words giving a velvety touch to the dialogue) I am delighted, judging from the admirable manner in which you carried off the surprise of our rencontre before the telephone girl in the office, to find developed to an unusually (if I may say so) high degree—will tell you that it was but a ruse to justify my presence.
“In fact, sir, my impression of you has been so favorable—vide: one:—(Charles checking off the factors on his fingers as he spoke) your courage and insouciance this morning; two:—your quick-wit and savoir-faire this afternoon—that it shall be my pleasant duty to report you to the Chief as one most eminently fitted for induction into our organization, and as one thoroughly equipped with the qualifications necessary to the man who will be entrusted with the problem of solving what is perhaps the greatest murder mystery of all time.”
Pragman’s face gaped before him like the slot of the ornamental letterboxes designed for the Sunset Drive in Sacramento, California. Charles, sensing his ascendancy, paused and drew himself to his full height before he continued.
“I refer, of course—and the secrecy necessary to be observed with regard to this highly confidential statement will mark the implicit trust we place, sir, in you—to the Trulge murder, a case to the solution of which our organization has been called because the police not only of New York but of all the other metropolises—(Charles had not been sure of the plural form of this word, but he carried it off—he carried it off)—of the world are completely at sea. When can you begin?”
Words (apologies to Paul Rosenfeld) fluttered like pink butterflies joyously from Pragman’s mouth.
“Are you—are you—” he asked, “from the Searchlight Detective Agency and Training School?”
Charles’ heart leaped proud within him. It had not, after all, been a wrong guess. He had made it a toss-up between scenario-writing and detectives.
“Exactly! Exactly!” he replied on a note of enthusiasm. “I knew I could count on you to understand. At times, in the study of our thorough-going course in detectiving in all its phases, your determination may have weakened, the light may have grown dim before your eyes. But now, now!—now!—you see the reward!”
And—“The Reward!”—he repeated, producing the badge which, like the good strategist he was, he had been careful to procure beforehand.
“You are now,”—pinning the medal to Pragman’s vest—“an operative of the Searchlight Detective Agency, empowered at home and abroad, to retain, suborn, interrogate, replevin, and proceed to the arrest to, from and of all malefactors, criminals or suspected malefactors or criminals or other persons known or for good reasons supposed to be enemies of the Body General, by these presents be it resolved.
“Your salary will be from $3000 to $5000 a year!
“All expenses will be paid!
“You will travel!
“You will see the world!”
He paused. Pragman’s heart, like a Strasbourg goose’s liver, was feeding on his words.
“Quit your job tonight. Give your employer any excuse you may think of.
“At an hour as yet undetermined, but for the present to be denominated as ‘X,’ I or another operative empowered to treat with you will visit you at your home at 97 Juniper Street, Yonkers, New York!
“Hold yourself in readiness!
“You will recognize the visitor by the password—‘Eggs are indeterminate but fowls are firm.’ The operative will reply—‘If Moscow reverses, sell at once’!
“Accept no substitute!
“Have you studied the Trulge case?”
Pragman shook his head, chagrined. For a permissible moment, Charles Dograr looked stern. “You must keep au courant,” he admonished at last, relenting.
He thrust a copy of the Evening Journal into Pragman’s hands.
“Here! Study this! A detailed report and instructions will be handed you by the operative referred to!
“Meantime. . . Secrecy! … Watchfulness! … Eternal Vigilance!”
A fleeting handclasp, warm with friendliness, strong with resolution. …
A word: “We depend on you!”
And Rupert Pragman rubberly was trying to open the familiar
Room 411
Buckeye Belt and Leather Corpn.
F. S. Knox, Prest.
Charles Dograr had vanished toward the elevators.
7—LIGHT THROUGH FOG
You will observe, then—,” the old gentleman halted suddenly, looking down at his young disciple. “Have you plenty of paper?” he asked.
“Oh! Yes! Yes!” said Charles Dograr, all agog to continue the fascinating lesson.
“Hm-m-m-m-m. It may seem that we start rather far afield, but have I proved my fundamental thesis: that Metaphysics, per se, is intrinsically as precise a science as Physics, since, granting the division of the senses, each derives, by the same means, from the Science of Ontology?1
“Yes,” said Charles Dograr.
“I think I stated too,” continued the old gentleman, “the curious fact—simple enough, but so often overlooked—defining the difference between these two sciences, namely: that both, though proceeding by directly parallel methods, make use of absolutely complementary human equipment—if I may so state it.
“Roughly, one depends on the mind to the exclusion, if possible, of the senses—the other on the senses to the exclusion, if possible, of the mind. And entre parenthèses, I may say that the bastard pseudo-science of Psychology falls between two stools when it tries to straddle the difference.”
“Oh!” said Charles Dograr.
“Now, when two instruments operate by the same method on the same subject, the difference in result, obviously, will be the measure of the difference in accuracy between the two instruments. The difference between the definitions of identical objects or phenomena as stated by each of the two sciences, then becomes an exact indication of the discrepancies in coordination between the mind and senses of man as at present functioning.
“We can,” he picked up a half-eaten pork chop and began idly gnawing it as he continued, “go further. Using this difference as a base, we can by a process of mental triangulation2 similar to that by which the surveyor estimates immensurable distances, conjecture the point at which the two sciences will converge into unity.
“For, obviously, if the two are homogeneous in nature and homogenous in growth, the pinpoint of perfection in both (and consequently in man’s function) will be the moment at which each merges into the other.
“Moreover, it is my firm belief that the best way to advance our comprehension of the interrelation between the two sciences is by formulating—just as the economists with their homo œconomicus—a conjectural homo physico-philosophicus, thus predicating, at the very beginning, the perfections that will accrue when the two sciences exact.3 “I am not the first, I may say,” the old gentleman smiled deprecatingly, “to have advanced the possibilities of this method of procedure. But to my knowledge,” and his voice rose higher as he spoke, “I am the first who has ever pursued it to any practical end.
“We have established, then, the principal point to be understood in consideration of my invention: That the homo physico-philosophicus can exist,—that his mind and his senses will act and interact in complete harmony, and that therefor he can be defined as one to whom the Sciences of Physics and of Metaphysics will be synonymous!”4
In his excitement he threw aside the porkchop. “Can exist, did I say?” Leaning forward, he emphasized each word of the sentence that follows by a light tap of the forefinger on the left breast of Charles Dograr. “He does exist! I am the homo physico-philosophicus–the first perhaps, that has ever existed in the history of man!”5
Charles silently raised a glass of sherry in homage, then drained it. The old gentleman continued.
“Let us now try to understand the hypothetical brain functioning of this man. I have already pointed out the curious fact that in their definition of matter, the Sciences of Physics6 and Metaphysics7 differ only in that the first states that some substance as yet undetermined, when combined with energy, produces objective phenomena, while the second holds that the same substance, combined with form, produces the same result.
“Both, therefor, are negative definitions, and can most advantageously be stated thus:
“Observed phenomena and observed matter are obviously equivalent terms in equation (A) and in equation (B). We can, therefor, subtract equation (B) from (A), and reach the result:
8
“Really,” said Charles Dograr. “I never was very mathematical.” He was beginning to feel a bit bored with it all. He glanced tentatively, even longingly, (and was his glance observed?) in the direction of the engine of death, now shrouded under its black cover. The night was like the hair on his scalp and he began to wish once more to be at his post at the oculascope while the old gentleman sent his bulls-eye bullet piercing the walls of distant chambers and the sleepers therein, of whose multiple respirations his fainting senses were now but the echo, slumbrously receding (and had it been only that this fevered desire for action might be born in the young man’s brain that the old gentleman had launched on his astonishing burst of rhodomontade?)
And he was still talking. “. . . simple for our homo physico-philosophicus! Form equals Energy–naturally. But first let us ask how far we may safely. …” (The room whistled with light but through the window Charles saw the loitering night, beguiling, like a Spanish senorita. He felt sleepy. The air was like knives in his nostrils and). The old gentleman was still talking. … “whole question of invisibility brings us to—
“Conclusion 3: that Form is but a kind of inorganic blastomere, of which Energy can be considered as the epiblast”!
“Oh! Quite probably! Quite probably!” Charles Dograr agreed, and then began feverishly taking notes.
“Then, if the biological analogy be sound, which I have, to my own satisfaction at any rate, amply proved in practice, it follows that Form is actually a kind of static growth through which Energy, by a very real form of metastasis, is derived.
“Energy then, to put it more simply, is merely isomeric Form. And Form, therefor, is capable of indefinite projection through space—provided that the co-related energy be entirely endogenous!
“And now—” the old gentleman produced a large diagram (reproduced herewith; see page 79). Then, going to his machine, he opened the stereopticon-like chamber, revealing an intricately interweaving, oppositely-ascending pair of quartz tubes or cylinders, each of which looked rather like the skeleton of a pyramid, ascending in continuous, diminishing, proportionate rectangles “—for the mechanics of the thing. …” (And
Charles9
10
* * *
1 Springart and Carm, The Physicist’s Handbook, (Cincinnati, 1914) pp. 137–5; Gorgorza, La Esencia de las Ciencias, (Valladolid, 1743) vol. 8, ch. xliii.]
2 Federman, Die Farbrelationem von Raum, (Leipzig, 1878) p. 57 … “durch die sinnliche Relation des aus der dreidimensionalen Gleiderung gewonnen Koordinationssystems. …” etc. There are interesting foreshadowings of this theory among many earlier students, vide: Lucian, De Scientia Libidinis, (Ms. Bib. Nat. Par.) fol. V, pp. xxii-vi, cix-xx, etc.; Hesser, Zun Alkimie Fundalis, (Antwerp 1532) who, thinking to develop a system of alchemy, divined instead, almost miraculously, the system of modern thought.
3 The sense of this passage is obscure. Several variant readings have been proposed. G. C. K. suggests: … . “beginning, the exact perfections accrue to the two sciences.” Camb. Ed. (L. L. J.) reads. … “beginning, the perfect science that this accretion will exact.” We give the Ms. reading, though obviously perverted.—Editor.
4 He refers undoubtedly to Florentia Guillamentius, from whose Un Leocht Ser Zeltgeis, (Amsterdam 1688), pp. 971–2, the passage is an almost exact transcription
5 Excepting, possibly, Pythagoras. In this connection a 64-page in-12 pamphlet, privately issued in New York, 1907, under the name of René Fonstant and entitled, “The Kinetic Properties of Form,” may be mentioned. ‘René Fonstant,’ it will be remembered, was one of the aliases of the old gentleman. The book is an attempt to modernize the Pythagorean theory of metempsychosis, applying it as a key to the atomic theory.
6 Benson and Hedges, Tobacconist’s Guide (N. Y.).
7 Thomas More, De Dementia Mundis (Oxford, 1577). Book of Knowledge, (Int. Book Corp., 1918), pp. 913–27, etc. The book is invaluable, its publishers assert
8 As a matter of fact, the invention of various mechanical devices in which the utilization of force engendered was pushed to hitherto unheard-of limits, had already begun to force physicists in general to the consideration of the truth of this or a similar theory. See Signor Storelli, inventor of the Sliding-Arc Water Sphere, in a paper read before the R. I. S. E. M. E., “I personally am convinced that the explanation of the Water-Sphere lies in some kinetic relation, as yet uncharted, between form and energy, per se—the study of which relation and its utilization will be the next great advance in the Science of Physics!”
9 began thinking heavily. He had enemies, or rather he was enemies for example the man who had bumped in the gray suit and there had been a guard on the Third Avenue El not to mention the waitress at Childs as some possibility in the conception awakened his brain and he stared assiduously at the old gentleman. One had but to ask apparently in the future he must get the address. 97 Juniper Street? He asked but he said no and.
10 “Look here,” he said thickly rising and he waving a sh-h-h hand the old gentleman understanding nodding to the blackdraped engine but with a sly eye:
“Take a few hours rest now.”
8—“I THINK HE IS LIGHT OF HEART!”
In a small room on the third floor of the house across the way, a lady removed from her eyes a small pair of binoculars, and laid them on a table.
“It don’t look as if they’d do much tonight,” she murmured half aloud, and yawned. “But Fred is going to be disappointed.” Although she had stopped speaking abruptly, closing her ruby lips and firm white teeth almost sternly over the last word, there was a suspended intonation in her voice which would have moved most authors, in describing the scene, to have affixed, immediately after the letter ‘d’ in the word ‘disappointed,” the following row of dots: ‘. . . . . . . .’
Since we are now introducing this lady to the attention of the interested reader, some description of herself and the milieu in which we find her is perhaps appropriate—though (if we are to consider the word “appropriate” in all its bearings) the lateness of the hour (it was 4:45 A. M.), the intimacy of the chamber (it was her bedroom) and the negligence of her apparel (she wore only a blue silk chemise and blue satin mules) must deter us from carrying too far our investigations.
