The Necromancers Part 29

"My dear chap, that isn't evidence. No evidence in the world could make me believe that the earth was upside down. These things don't happen."

"Then how do you explain...?"

"I don't explain," said Mr. Morton. "The thing's simply not worth looking into. If you really saw that, you're either mad or else there was a trick.... Now come along to lunch."

"But I'm not the only one," cried Laurie hotly.

"No, indeed you're not.... Look here, Baxter, that sort of thing plays the devil with nerves. Just drop it once and for all. I knew a chap once who went in for all that. Well, the end was what everybody knew would happen...."

"Yes?" said Laurie.

"Went off his chump," said the other briefly. "Nasty mess all over the floor. Now come to lunch."

"Wait a second. You can't argue from particulars to universals. Was he the only one you ever knew?"

The other paused a moment.

"No," he said. "As it happens, he wasn't. I knew another chap--he's a solicitor.... Oh! by the way, he's one of your people--a Catholic, I mean."

"Well, what about him?" "Oh! he's all right," admitted Mr. Morton, with a grudging air. "But he gave it up and took to religion instead."

"Yes? What's his name?"

"Cathcart."

He glanced up at the clock.

"Good Lord," he said, "ten to one."

Then he was gone.

Laurie was far too exalted to be much depressed by this counsel's opinion; and had, indeed, several minutes of delightful meditation on the crass complacency of a clever man when taken off his ground. It was deplorable, he said to himself, that men should be so content with their limitations. But it was always the way, he reflected. To be a specialist in one point involved the pruning of all growth on every other. Here was Morton, almost in the front rank of his particular subject, and, besides, very far from being a bookworm; yet, when taken an inch out of his rut, he could do nothing but flounder. He wondered what Morton would make of these things if he saw them himself.

In the course of the afternoon Morton himself turned up again. The case had ended unexpectedly soon. Laurie waited till the closing of the shutters offered an opportunity for a break in the work, and once more returned to the charge.

"Morton," he said, "I wish you'd come with me one day."

The other looked up.

"Eh?"

"To see for yourself what I told you."

Mr. Morton snorted abruptly.

"Lord!" he said, "I thought we'd done with that. No, thank you: Egyptian Hall's all I need."

Laurie sighed elaborately.

"Oh! of course, if you won't face facts, one can't expect...."

"Look here, Baxter," said the other almost kindly, "I advise you to give this up. It plays the very devil with nerves, as I told you. Why, you're as jumpy as a cat yourself. And it isn't worth it. If there was anything in it, why it would be another thing; but...."

"I ... I wouldn't give it up for all the world," stammered Laurie in his zeal. "You simply don't know what you're talking about. Why ...

why, I'm not a fool ... I know that. And do you think I'm ass enough to be taken in by a trick? And as if a trick could be played like that in a drawing-room! I tell you I examined every inch...."

"Look here," said Morton, looking curiously at the boy--for there was something rather impressive about Laurie's manner--"look here; you'd better see old Cathcart. Know him...? Well, I'll introduce you any time. He'll tell you another tale. Of course, I don't believe all the rot he talks; but, at any rate, he's sensible enough to have given it all up. Says he wouldn't touch it with a pole. And he was rather a big bug at it in his time, I believe."

Laurie sneered audibly.

"Got frightened, I suppose," he said. "Of course, I know well enough that it's rather startling--"

"My dear man, he was in the thick of it for ten years. I'll acknowledge his stories are hair-raising, if one believed them; but then, you see--"

"What's his address?"

Morton jerked his head towards the directories in the bookshelf.

"Find him there," he said. "I'll give you an introduction if you want it. Though, mind you, I think he talks as much rot as anyone--"

"What does he say?"

"Lord!--I don't know. Some theory or other. But, at any rate, he's given it up."

Laurie pursed his lips.

"I daresay I'll ask you some time," he said. "Meanwhile--"

"Meanwhile, for the Lord's sake, get on with that business you've got there."

Mr. Morton was indeed, as Laurie had reflected, extraordinarily uninterested in things outside his beat; and his beat was not a very extended one. He was a quite admirable barrister, competent, alert, merciless and kindly at the proper times, and, while at his business, thought of hardly anything else at all. And when he was not at his business, he threw himself with equal zest into two or three other occupations--golf, dining out, and the collection of a particular kind of chairs. Beyond these things there was for him really nothing of value.

But, owing to circumstances, his beat had been further extended to include Laurie Baxter, whom he was beginning to like extremely. There was an air of romance about Laurie, a pleasant enthusiasm, excellent manners, and a rather delightful faculty of hero-worship. Mr. Morton himself, too, while possessing nothing even resembling a religion, was, like many other people, not altogether unattracted towards those who had, though he thought religiousness to be a sign of a slightly incompetent character; and he rather liked Laurie's Catholicism, such as it was. It must be rather pleasant, he considered (when he considered it at all), to believe "all that," as he would have said.

So this new phase of Laurie's interested him far more than he would have allowed, so soon as he became aware that it was not merely superficial; and, indeed, Laurie's constant return to the subject, as well as his air of enthusiastic conviction, soon convinced him that this was so.

Further, after a week or two, he became aware that the young man's work was suffering; and he heard from his lips the expression of certain views that seemed to the elder man extremely unhealthy.

For example, on a Friday evening, not much afterwards, as Laurie was putting his books together, Mr. Morton asked him where he was going to spend the week-end.

"Stopping in town," said the boy briefly.

"Oh! I'm going to my brother's cottage. Care to come? Afraid there's no Catholic church near."

Laurie smiled.

Chapter end