LITMIR.BIZ

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pedestal of velvet but that hideous thing which had been there was gone. The thought came to him to bring it back, to see more, but repulsive fear, terror seized upon him. He rose and staggered out of the cabinet. His face was pallid and his hands clasped and unclasped nervously.

      Jadeh was lying on a divan sobbing. She leaped to her feet when he entered, and looking into his face she knew. Again she buried her face in her hands and wept afresh. Adhem stood with moody eyes fixed on the great god Budd.

      “I saw—I understand,” said Varick between his teeth, “but—I don’t believe it.”

      “The crystal never lies, Sahib,” said the seer, sorrowfully.

      “But it can’t be-that,” Varick declared protestingly.

      “Be careful, Sahib, oh, be careful,” urged the girl.

      “Of course I shall be careful,” said Varick, shortly. Suddenly he turned to the crystal gazer and there was a menace in his tone. “Did such a thing ever appear to you before?”

      “Only once, Sahib.”

      “And did it come true?”

      Adhem inclined his head, slowly.

      “I may see you tomorrow,” exclaimed Varick suddenly. “This room is stifling. I must go out.”

      With twitching hands he drew on a light coat over his evening dress, picked up his hat and rushed out into the world of realities. The crystal gazer stood for a moment while Jadeh clung to his arm, tremblingly.

      “It is as the gods will,” he said sadly, at last.

      Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine—received Howard Varick in the small reception room and invited him to a seat. Varick’s face was ashen; there were dark lines under his eyes and in them there was the glitter of an ungovernable terror. Every move showed the nervousness which gripped him. The Thinking Machine squinted at him curiously, then dropped back into his big chair.

      For several minutes Varick said nothing; he seemed to be struggling to control himself. Suddenly he burst out:

      “I’m going to die some day next week. Is there any way to prevent it?”

      The Thinking Machine turned his great yellow head and looked at him in a manner which nearly indicated surprise.

      “Of course if you’ve made up your mind to do it,” he said irritably, “I don’t see what can be done.” There was a trace of irony in his voice, a coldness which brought Varick around a little. “Just how is it going to happen?”

      “I shall be murdered—stabbed in the back—by a man whom I don’t know,” Varick rushed on desperately.

      “Dear me, dear me, how unfortunate,” commented the scientist. “Tell me something about it. But here—” He arose and went into his laboratory. After a moment he returned and handed a glass of some effervescent liquid to Varick, who gulped it down. “Take a minute to pull yourself together,” instructed the scientist.

      He resumed his seat and sat silent with his long, slender fingers pressed tip to tip. Gradually Varick recovered. It was a fierce fight for the mastery of emotion.

      “Now,” directed The Thinking Machine at last, “tell me about it.”

      Varick told just what happened lucidly enough, and The Thinking Machine listened with polite interest. Once or twice he turned and looked at his visitor.

      “Do you believe in any psychic force?” Varick asked once.

      “I don’t disbelieve in anything until I have proven that it cannot be,” was the answer. “The God who hung a sun up there has done other things which we will never understand.” There was a little pause, then: “How did you meet this man, Adhem Singh?”

      “I have been interested for years in the psychic, the occult, the things we don’t understand,” Varick replied. “I have a comfortable fortune, no occupation, no dependents and made this a sort of hobby. I have studied it superficially all over the world. I met Adhem Singh in India ten years ago, afterwards in England where he went through Oxford with some financial assistance from me, and later here. Two years ago he convinced me that there was something in crystal gazing—call it telepathy, self hypnotism, sub-conscious mental action—what you will. Since then the science, I can call it nothing else, has guided me in every important act of my life.”

      “Through Adhem Singh?”

      “Yes.”

      “And under a pledge of secrecy, I imagine—that is secrecy as to the nature of his revelations?”

      “Yes.”

      “Any taint of insanity in your family?”

      Varick wondered whether the question was in the nature of insolent reproof, or was a request for information. He construed it as the latter.

      “No,” he answered. “Never a touch of it.”

      “How often have you consulted Mr. Singh?”

      “Many times. There have been occasions when he would tell me nothing because, he explained, the crystal told him nothing. There have been other times when he advised me correctly. He has never given me bad advice even in intricate stock operations, therefore I have been compelled to believe him in all things.”

      “You were never able to see anything yourself in the crystal until this vision of death, last Tuesday night you say?”

      “That was the first.”

      “How do you know the murder is to take place at any given time—that is next week, as you say?”

      “That is the information Adhem Singh gave me,” was the reply. “He can read the visions—they mean more to him than—”

      “In other words, he makes it a profession?” interrupted the scientist.

      “Yes.”

      “Go on.”

      “The horror of the thing impressed me so—both of us—that he has at my request twice invoked the vision since that night. He, like you, wanted to know when it would happen. There is a calendar by weeks in my study; that is, only one week is shown on it at a time. The last time the vision appeared he noted this calendar. The week was that beginning next Sunday, the 21st of this month. The only conclusion we could reach was it would happen during that week.”

      The Thinking Machine arose and paced back and forth across the room deeply thoughtful. At last he stopped before his visitor.

      “It’s perfectly amazing,” he commented emphatically. “It approaches nearer to the unbelievable than anything I have ever heard of.”

      Varick’s response was a look that was almost grateful.

      “You believe it impossible then?” he asked, eagerly.

      “Nothing is impossible,” declared the other aggressively. “Now, Mr. Varick, you are firmly convinced that what you saw was prophetic? That you will die in that manner, in that place?”

      “I can’t believe anything else—I can’t,” was the response.

      “And you have no idea of the identity of the murderer-to-be, if I may use that phrase?”

      “Not the slightest. The figure was wholly unfamiliar to me.”

      “And you know—you know—that the room you saw in the crystal was yours?”

      “I know that absolutely. Rugs, furniture, mantel, books, everything was mine.”

      The Thinking Machine was again silent for a time.

      “In that event,” he said at last, “the affair is perfectly simple. Will you place yourself in my hands and obey my directions implicitly?”

      “Yes.” There was an eager, hopeful note in Varick’s voice now.

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