BRITISH MYSTERIES - Fergus Hume Collection: 21 Thriller Novels in One Volume. Fergus Hume

answer, but pulling a drawer out of the table, produced from it a long steel knife, the edge of which he felt with a hideous smile. Philippa felt her heart leap, and would have fainted, but that she knew all her courage would be needed in this terrible situation.

      “Young lady,” said the Professor, looking at her with a triumphant smile, and speaking slowly, “some months ago I made a great discovery which requires one thing to perfect it. That is the blood of a pure and innocent maiden. I have chosen you as the person who is to assist at the consummation of this great secret of Nature. You will have had a short life but an eternal fame.”

      Philippa’s heart turned sick within her as she saw the long blade of the knife, and the wild fire in his eyes.

      “It is an honour,” he went on in the same monotonous tone, “to be an aid to the great cause of science. What is death? Only a pang, and then all is over. Are you prepared?”

      The poor girl breathed a prayer to God, and fixed her eyes steadily on the madman.

      “You have been my father’s guest,” she said in a hard voice, which sounded unnatural to her own ears. “Will you stain your hands with the blood of his daughter?”

      “It is an honour,” answered the madman, with a cruel smile, running his thumb along the edge of the knife. “Prepare.”

      Philippa had retreated to the window as he advanced, and she looked round for some weapon of defence. On the window-sill by her side stood a huge bottle filled with some chemical preparation. At an ordinary time, she could not have lifted it, but at the present moment the terrible danger gave her strength, and, catching it up, she turned round on the German.

      He was now standing immediately in front of the furnace, and she could see the fire blazing up behind him.

      “Advance another step and I will throw this,” she cried, despairingly.

      “It is an honour,” he repeated, still advancing, with a vacant smile.

      She closed her eyes in desperation, and flung the bottle at him with all her strength. It struck the madman on the shoulder, causing him to stagger against the furnace, and then fall with a crash into the burning heat of the fire. Immediately there was a terrible explosion, and Philippa saw a wall of flame rise up before her as she sank insensible on the floor.

      * * *

      Meanwhile Jack, guessing that there was something wrong, hammered at the door with unabated vigour, but finding that it resisted all his efforts, looked round for some way of escape.

      He was in a long, narrow room, and at the end a small window gave an indistinct light! Jack hurried towards this and dashed it open. He got outside on the ledge which ran round the house, and found himself about twenty feet from the ground. The ivy which grew in profusion over the walls offered a natural ladder. So, not hesitating a moment, he scrambled down. How he reached the ground he did not know, but as soon as he found himself there he ran round to the front, in at the door which the Professor had left open, and up the stairs.

      The door of the laboratory was closed. But that was no obstacle, for the athlete, putting his shoulder to it, burst it open, and on entering found the room full of smoke. He stumbled over a body lying on the floor, and on bending down saw it was that of the Professor, lying in a pool of blood.

      Hastily he stepped over him, and discovered Philippa lying under the window insensible. He caught her in his arms, and, carrying her downstairs, called loudly for the servants.

      On their appearance, he sent them to see after the Professor, while he laid Philippa on a sofa in the sitting-room, and sprinkled her face with water. She opened her eyes with a low moan, and, on seeing Jack’s face bending over her, caught his arm with a convulsive sob.

      “Oh, Jack,” she gasped, “what has happened?”

      “That’s what I should like to know,” said Jack, anxiously, as she sat up.

      “The Professor wanted to kill me,” she said, looking at him with a haggard face, “and I threw some bottle at him. It fell into the fire, there was an explosion, and I knew no more.”

      Jack did not say anything, but telling one of the servants to go for the Launceston police took her home.

      * * *

      Of course the affair caused a nine days’ wonder. The back of the Professor’s head was blown away, and death must have been instantaneous. The bottle evidently contained some dangerous drug, which exploded on touching the fire. He was buried in England, and news of his death was sent to his relatives in Germany.

      Sir Gilbert was horrified at the event, and came to the conclusion, as did everyone else, that the German was mad. Philippa’s system sustained a severe shock, and she was ill for a long time.

      She is now Lady Dulchester, and her husband is devotedly attached to her.

      The diary of the Professor fell into the hands of Sir Gilbert, and it was from it that Lady Dulchester learned the strange series of events which had so nearly cost her her life.

      Jack is very proud of his wife’s bravery, but she can never recall without a shudder that terrible hour when she discovered the Professor’s secret.

      Note by Dr. R. Andrews.—I was on a visit to Sir Gilbert Harkness, and in the library found the diary of the late Professor Brankel. I read it, and was deeply interested in the wonderful example which it afforded me of the workings of a diseased brain. Sir Gilbert had a phial of the elixir which the Professor claimed to have discovered, and on analysing it I found that the principal ingredient was opium. Without doubt this was the cause of his visions and hallucinations as described by him in his diary. Whether he did find the cryptogram which led to his discovery I do not know, but the quantity of opium and other drugs which he took must have sent him mad.

      From the earlier portions of his diary I am inclined to think that he must have had the germs of insanity in him, which developed under the evil influence of the drink which he called the elixir.

      I obtained leave from Sir Gilbert to publish the portions of the diary contained in this story (which I translated from the German), and from what was told me by Lady Dulchester and her husband, I pieced the rest of the story together.

      The opium vision in Chapter V struck me as peculiarly strange. It seems to embrace short and vivid pictures of what the dreamer saw, and must have been written by him immediately after he awoke in the morning. In the diary it was written hurriedly, and was so illegible that I could not make portions of it out.

      The workings of this man’s mind are peculiarly interesting, and this fact, coupled with the strange series of events linking it to the outer world, led me to publish this story. Of a certainty there is no truer saying than, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

      Madame Midas

       Table of Contents

       Prologue. Cast Up by the Sea

       Part I

       I. The Pactolus Claim

       II. Slivers

       III. Madame Midas at Home

       IV. The Good Samaritan

       V. Mammon’s Treasure House

       VI.