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Page 40
"How extraordinary! And how, if I may ask, do you fill the
terrible vacuum in your life that such a denial must create?"
"I have never been conscious of such a vacuum. I was a sceptic
from my youth up. No doubt those who were nurtured in superstition,
when reason at last conquers and they break away, may experience
a temporary blank; but the wonders of nature and the achievements
of man and the demands of the suffering world--these should be
enough to fill any blank for a reasonable creature."
"If such are your opinions, you will fail here," declared the
clergyman positively.
"Why do you feel so sure of that?"
"Because you are faced with facts that have no material explanation.
They are supernatural, or supernormal, if you prefer the word."
"'One world at a time,' is a very good motto in my judgment,"
replied Hardcastle. "We will exhaust the possibilities of this
world first, sir."
"They have already been exhausted. Only a simple, straightforward
question awaits your reply. Do you believe in another world or do
you not?"
"In the endless punishment or the endless happiness of men and
women after they are dead?"
"If you like to confuse the issue in that way you are at liberty,
of course, to do so. As a Christian, I cannot demur. The problem
for the rationalist is this: How does he ignore the deeply rooted
and universal conviction that there is a life to come? Is such a
sanguine assurance planted in the mind of even the lowest savage
for nothing? Where did the aborigines win that expectation?"
"My answer embraces the whole question from my own point of view,"
replied Hardcastle. "The savages got their idea of dual
personality from phenomena of nature which they were unable to
explain--from their dreams, from their own shadows on the earth
and reflections in water, from the stroke of the lightning and
the crash of the thunder, from the echo of their own voices, thrown
back to them from crags and cliffs. These things created their
superstitions. Ignorance bred terror, and terror bred gods and
demons--first out of the forces of nature. That is the appalling
mental legacy handed down in varying shapes to all the children
of men. We labor under them to this day."
"You would dare to say our most sacred verities have sprung from
the dreams of savages?"
Hardcastle smiled.
"It is true. And dreams, we further know, are often the result of
indigestion. Early man didn't understand the art of cookery, and
therefore no doubt his stomach had a great deal to put up with.
We have to thank his bear steaks and wolf chops for a great deal
of our cherished nonsense, no doubt."
Sir Walter, marking the clergyman's flashing eyes, changed the
subject, and Septimus May, who observed his concern, restrained
a bitter answer. But he despaired of the detective from that
moment, and proposed to himself a future assault on such detested
modern opinions when opportunity occurred.
After breakfast Mr. Hardcastle begged for a private interview with
the master of Chadlands, and for two hours sat in his study and
took him through the case from the beginning.
He put various questions concerning the members of the recent house
party, and presently begged that Henry Lennox might join them.
"I should like to hear the account of what passed on the night
between him and Captain May," he said.
Henry joined them, and detailed his experience. While he talked,
Hardcastle appraised him, and perceived that certain nebulous
opinions, which had begun to crystallize in his own mind, could
have no real foundation. The detective believed that he was
confronted with a common murder, and on hearing Henry's history,
as part of Sir Walter's story with the rest, perceived that the
old lover of Mary Lennox had last seen her husband alive, had
drunk with him, and been the first to find him dead. Might not
Henry have found an eastern poison in Mesopotamia? But his
conversation with the young man, and the unconscious revelation of
Henry himself, shattered the idea. Lennox was innocent enough.
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