VII. THE LOCKED DOOR.
THE reader will perhaps understand that at first everything was so strangeabout me, and my position was the outcome of such unexpected adventures,that I had no discernment of the relative strangeness of thisor that thing. I followed the llama up the beach, and was overtakenby Montgomery, who asked me not to enter the stone enclosure.I noticed then that the puma in its cage and the pile of packageshad been placed outside the entrance to this quadrangle.
I turned and saw that the launch had now been unloaded, run out again,and was being beached, and the white-haired man was walking towards us.He addressed Montgomery.
"And now comes the problem of this uninvited guest. What are weto do with him?"
"He knows something of science," said Montgomery.
"I'm itching to get to work again--with this new stuff,"said the white-haired man, nodding towards the enclosure.His eyes grew brighter.
"I daresay you are," said Montgomery, in anything but a cordial tone.
"We can't send him over there, and we can't spare the time to buildhim a new shanty; and we certainly can't take him into our confidencejust yet."
"I'm in your hands," said I. I had no idea of what he meantby "over there."
"I've been thinking of the same things," Montgomery answered."There's my room with the outer door--"
"That's it," said the elder man, promptly, looking at Montgomery;and all three of us went towards the enclosure. "I'm sorry to makea mystery, Mr. Prendick; but you'll remember you're uninvited.Our little establishment here contains a secret or so, is a kindof Blue-Beard's chamber, in fact. Nothing very dreadful, really, to asane man; but just now, as we don't know you--"
"Decidedly," said I, "I should be a fool to take offence at any wantof confidence."
He twisted his heavy mouth into a faint smile--he was one of thosesaturnine people who smile with the corners of the mouth down,--andbowed his acknowledgment of my complaisance. The main entranceto the enclosure was passed; it was a heavy wooden gate, framed in ironand locked, with the cargo of the launch piled outside it, and atthe corner we came to a small doorway I had not previously observed.The white-haired man produced a bundle of keys from the pocketof his greasy blue jacket, opened this door, and entered.His keys, and the elaborate locking-up of the place even while itwas still under his eye, struck me as peculiar. I followed him,and found myself in a small apartment, plainly but not uncomfortablyfurnished and with its inner door, which was slightly ajar, opening intoa paved courtyard. This inner door Montgomery at once closed.A hammock was slung across the darker corner of the room, and asmall unglazed window defended by an iron bar looked out towardsthe sea.
This the white-haired man told me was to be my apartment;and the inner door, which "for fear of accidents," he said,he would lock on the other side, was my limit inward.He called my attention to a convenient deck-chair before the window,and to an array of old books, chiefly, I found, surgical worksand editions of the Latin and Greek classics (languages Icannot read with any comfort), on a shelf near the hammock.He left the room by the outer door, as if to avoid opening the innerone again.
"We usually have our meals in here," said Montgomery, and then,as if in doubt, went out after the other. "Moreau!" I heardhim call, and for the moment I do not think I noticed.Then as I handled the books on the shelf it came up in consciousness:Where had I heard the name of Moreau before? I sat down beforethe window, took out the biscuits that still remained to me,and ate them with an excellent appetite. Moreau!
Through the window I saw one of those unaccountable men in white, lugging apacking-case along the beach. Presently the window-frame hid him.Then I heard a key inserted and turned in the lock behind me.After a little while I heard through the locked door the noiseof the staghounds, that had now been brought up from the beach.They were not barking, but sniffing and growling in a curious fashion.I could hear the rapid patter of their feet, and Montgomery's voicesoothing them.
I was very much impressed by the elaborate secrecy of these two menregarding the contents of the place, and for some time I was thinkingof that and of the unaccountable familiarity of the name of Moreau;but so odd is the human memory that I could not then recall thatwell-known name in its proper connection. From that my thoughtswent to the indefinable queerness of the deformed man on the beach.I never saw such a gait, such odd motions as he pulled at the box.I recalled that none of these men had spoken to me, though mostof them I had found looking at me at one time or another in apeculiarly furtive manner, quite unlike the frank stare of yourunsophisticated savage. Indeed, they had all seemed remarkably taciturn,and when they did speak, endowed with very uncanny voices.What was wrong with them? Then I recalled the eyes of Montgomery'sungainly attendant.
Just as I was thinking of him he came in. He was now dressed in white,and carried a little tray with some coffee and boiled vegetables thereon.I could hardly repress a shuddering recoil as he came, bending amiably,and placed the tray before me on the table. Then astonishmentparalysed me. Under his stringy black locks I saw his ear;it jumped upon me suddenly close to my face. The man had pointed ears,covered with a fine brown fur!
"Your breakfast, sair," he said.
I stared at his face without attempting to answer him. He turnedand went towards the door, regarding me oddly over his shoulder.I followed him out with my eyes; and as I did so, by some odd trickof unconscious cerebration, there came surging into my head the phrase,"The Moreau Hollows"--was it? "The Moreau--" Ah! It sent my memoryback ten years. "The Moreau Horrors!" The phrase drifted loosein my mind for a moment, and then I saw it in red lettering on a littlebuff-coloured pamphlet, to read which made one shiver and creep.Then I remembered distinctly all about it. That long-forgottenpamphlet came back with startling vividness to my mind.I had been a mere lad then, and Moreau was, I suppose, about fifty,--aprominent and masterful physiologist, well-known in scientificcircles for his extraordinary imagination and his brutal directnessin discussion.
Was this the same Moreau? He had published some very astonishingfacts in connection with the transfusion of blood, and inaddition was known to be doing valuable work on morbid growths.Then suddenly his career was closed. He had to leave England.A journalist obtained access to his laboratory in the capacityof laboratory-assistant, with the deliberate intention of makingsensational exposures; and by the help of a shocking accident(if it was an accident), his gruesome pamphlet became notorious.On the day of its publication a wretched dog, flayed andotherwise mutilated, escaped from Moreau's house. It was inthe silly season, and a prominent editor, a cousin of the temporarylaboratory-assistant, appealed to the conscience of the nation.It was not the first time that conscience has turned against the methodsof research. The doctor was simply howled out of the country.It may be that he deserved to be; but I still think that the tepidsupport of his fellow-investigators and his desertion by the greatbody of scientific workers was a shameful thing. Yet some ofhis experiments, by the journalist's account, were wantonly cruel.He might perhaps have purchased his social peace by abandoninghis investigations; but he apparently preferred the latter, as most menwould who have once fallen under the overmastering spell of research.He was unmarried, and had indeed nothing but his own interestto consider.
I felt convinced that this must be the same man. Everything pointedto it. It dawned upon me to what end the puma and the otheranimals--which had now been brought with other luggage into theenclosure behind the house--were destined; and a curious faint odour,the halitus of something familiar, an odour that had been inthe background of my consciousness hitherto, suddenly came forwardinto the forefront of my thoughts. It was the antiseptic odourof the dissecting-room. I heard the puma growling through the wall,and one of the dogs yelped as though it had been struck.
Yet surely, and especially to another scientific man, there wasnothing so horrible in vivisection as to account for this secrecy;and by some odd leap in my thoughts the pointed ears and luminouseyes of Montgomery's attendan
t came back again before me withthe sharpest definition. I stared before me out at the green sea,frothing under a freshening breeze, and let these and other strangememories of the last few days chase one another through my mind.
What could it all mean? A locked enclosure on a lonely island,a notorious vivisector, and these crippled and distorted men?