"FALSE GODS."

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 132, 5 June 1923, Page 10

"FALSE GODS."

Bj GUY THORNE. Author of "Film City," "The Crime on. the Film," Etc.

CHAPTER XI. NARRATIVE OF MR. W. W. DUNCAN "NIN PARIS. I was c<ued of my mysterious illness— of which I shall have something to say later—two days after the "resurrection" of the Indian, Paul Kama. Sir Temple Greaves came down to Thorpe Royal and pronounced mc fit to travel. A full description of the extraordinary and baffling circumstances attending the reappearI ance of Rama was given mc l>y Mr. I Omerod, the Duchess of Norwich herself, I and the young Duke, all of whom were present. My friend, Dr. John Staveley, who had also been present, was in London and did not return to Thorpe Royal before I left. You will observe that 1 am here making the briefest and baldest of preliminary statements. My friend, Mr. Guy Thome, who is putting the whole story together from materials supplied by nearly all those concerned, has asked mc to contribute my own personal narrative, and I take it up at the point where the general story ceases for a time; that is. when Dr. .Staveley saw, or thought he saw, Paul llama in his London house on the morning of the ■"reincarnation." Very well, then. .Sir Temple and myself had an hour's conversation with the resuscitated Indian. When he was dying of consumption I had not felt drawn to him. Xow he reappeared with whole lungs, 1 like him Tees than ever. Death had not improved him. He was no longer the calm, confident, well-man-nered and, on the whole, gentle person he had shown himself. He now seemed exulting, arrogant, and, to mc, dangerous as a rattlesnake. Of course, a gentleman who can die, have ' his arteries severed, and within twentyfour hours leap out of his coffin amid loud cheers would naturally find his hat a little small for a time, but there was more than this in our revived corpse! It was his eyes 1 went by. They were burning with eagerness and purpose, if ever I understood a man's eyes yet ■ and if that purpose was not sinister I will bore through Mont Blanc with a lioiled carrot and give a boy a dollar to hold my shadow while I am doing it! I departed for London in Sir Temple's automobile, and while we were on the road he told mc of Dr. Stavelcv's experience. The doctor, as you know, went intv, his consulting-room, opened the shutters, and turned to find the übiquitous Mr. Rama standing in the middle of the room. Mr. Rama crowed over him some, and Dr. Staveley fell in a swoon oa the floor. Small wonder, too! Within forty-eight hours he had seen a man die, hiid performed an operation that made it absolutely certain he could not come to life again, and had seen that man step briskly from his coffin! Then, without losing a minute, the doctor had started for London in a fast car, which, if it could not fly, could catch birds. He walked to his house from the garage and there was smart Aleck again! Enough to knock anyone over! Now, the first phenomenon at Thorpe Royal was witnessed by a number of people, and I, myself, saw Rama afterwards. The second, I should have been inclined to put down to the overstrained state of Staveley's nerves but for one small circumstance— in buttons. Dr. Staveley employs a page boy, and that young person was arriving to his daily duties, and was about to enter the house by means of the area, when the front door opened and an Indian gentleman stepped out. He saw him quite distinctly, and described him accurately enough, being an observant lad. He thought he was one of his master's patients. Dr. Staveley was discovered Ly his housekeeper, who had been alarmed by the great he gave just before his fainted. She brought him round within five minutes, and, disregarding her entreaties to rest, lie made his way immediately to Sir Temple's house in Grosvenor Street. He related what had occurred, and Sir Temple, getting at the heart of the situation in a flash, immediately dispatched a long telegram to Mr. Omerod at Thorpe Royal. The telegram asked what the man, Paul Rama, had been doing, and where he was, from seven o'clock to seventhirty, also was he at Thorpe at that moment? I By eleven o'clock an answer was received. It stated that from seven to eight the prophet was locked Up in hie own room in mystic meditation. It also said that, at the moment of writing the telegram, Rama was in sight of Mr. Omerod walking up and down the south terrace in deep conversation with the Duchess of Norwich. When I arrived in London with Sir Temple, Dr. Staveley was ill in bed. I did not see him myself. I packed my grip and left for Paris, where I am at present writing this chapter. You will sec that I have made no comment whatever on these super-nor-mal happenings. I have simply stated facts. I have discussed the matter thoroughly with Sir Temple, and left for France in order to think out the whole affair—for nothing in the world would have made mc drop it then. I had learnt all about the real cause of my illness, and I remembered a certain twanging noise which I thought was the snapping of a picture cord. I had a long score to I settle on my own account. Profession- ! ally speaking, I had received a bad setI back. I had gone down to Thorpe Royal 1 perfectly confident that I should solve the mystery of Rama. Instead of that, Rama had triumphed over everyone. I resolved that I would keep to the trail ! ; till I was n the sear and yellow. An ; elucidation clear and definite was due to the world, and it seemed to mc my particular duty that the world should have jit. j A certain guarded report of what had I happened at the Castle was published in the Times.. I took care that I did not give too much away, and concluded the short article by hinting at further and highly interesting developments. I knew, however, that London was seething with excitement, and that the wildest rumours were floating about in sosociety.- Rama, it appears, had placed all his disciples under strict obligations to say nothing whatever. Sir Temple, at this state, was as silent as the grave, Staveley was on a sick-bed, and I was in Parie with no known 'aaavess. Tne public would have to wait. I have always found that when I wish to consider an event in all its bearings, it is far better to go right away from the scene of action. One's brain works uninfluenced by visual distractions, one has time to arrange personal memories and known facts. And of all places in the world Paris is. for mc. the best for such a purpose. To sit in front of some strange-coloured sirop in front of the Cafe de la Paix, with a good cigar in the mouth, stimulates my mental activity

to an extraordinary degree. One can watch with unseeing eyes, and yet at the same time obtain a sub-conscious gratification at the pageant which oils the wheels. One "watches the legions thunder past," and plunges into thought again. For three nights I sat, as I have said, and put the question fair and square to myself. First of all, did I believe that Rama did his stunts by supernatural means? Had he knowledge and powers beyond the normal? I say, right here, that every instinct in mc rose up in revolt against such an idea. No, a thousand times no! I could not understand how these seeming miracles had come to pass. There was hardly a ray of light, but I ruled the supernatural out. I therefore liad to do with one of the Bupreme tricksters of the world, to whom Dr. Dee, Cagliostro, and old Mother Shipton were not a circumstance! What did I know? Well, I knew something which no one else concerned knew—l had not even told it to Sir Temple Greaves. I let him think that when I was put out of action by the poisoned dart, or whatever it was, I was just walking along the corridor without any ulterior motives. But I had seen Rama whispering into the telephone in the dead of night for a full half hour! That was enough to start with. There was someone else, in the Castle the whole time—a confederate. Who was it? It was none of the house-party —l could swear to that from personal observation —or at least the possibility was bo remote that I preferred to eliminate it. Servants. Kqunlly unlikely. They would have been discovered sooner or later, and the only one of them with the slightest originality seemed to be my young friend Arthur. Obviously, the hidden person oame from outside. Now a possible solution at once jumped to my mind. While Kama was j dying in his bedroom, utterly unable to move, friend Staveley and Lady Cynthia Thorpe saw him in the wood. But was it Rama at all? They saw him by moonlight only. To the European eye Indians I are very much alike. Might it not have been an unknown confederate who greatly resembled the pretender? Proceeding onwards, I asked myself how. assuming I was right, was the socalled resurrection managed? And here the theory began to break down, in fact i did break down badly. From the moment of death until the . doctors placed it in the coffin, which they sealed and locked, the body was never out of the sight of some responjsible person. From that time until the i coffin was deposited in the temple, it was never left alone. The temple was also locked and scaled. It was a building which had been carefully examined by expert eyes and hands, and there was I no trickery about it. Moreover, it was watched all night and all the next day by Donclly, the detective. The substitution theory fell to pieces on these 'grounds alone. Moreover. [ myself saw and talked with Rama afterwards. Finally, there was the apparition—l call it that for want of a better word — I in South Audley Street. I Look which way one would, there ■ seemed no earthly explanation except that of the supernatural, and one could '■ not blame even the most sceptical of 'mortals for being convinced that no I earthly agency had brought these things I about. 1 knew from what Sir Temple had told mc that even the hard-hearted Dr. Staveley was wavering. As for Mr. Omerod, he was even then writing an exhaustive report for the Society of Psychical Research and giving it as his opinion that Rama wa.s a Yogi, or Mahatma. or whatever they call them, of I transcendental powers. As for the rest of them, they believed before, and now nothing short of the Day of Judgment would shake their belief—as I was to ! learn in a strange fashion on the third night of my stay in Paris. Thought was in a cul-de-sac. It beat itself against a barred door—[ ordered I another sirop, lit another cigar, and changed the direction. Still assuming black fraud, what was Rama aiming at? What did he hope to 'gain! Secondly, what did Jiis confederates hope to gain? For you will observe that, in all probability, he had two confederates. There was the gentleman who played hanky-panky with the Castle 'phone system and went big game hunting in the corridor, and there was also that gallant officer, General Ac-liilles Jlunro. It was just possible that they were one and the same, but inquiries made at Enfield, where. Donelly had a subordinate watching the house, seemed to show that the General never left the enclosure of his grounds until he set out for Norwich in his car on the morning of the day when Rama died. Now if that warrior had been prowling about with his little bow and arrow at three o'clock the night before at Thorpe Royal, it was almost—though not quite—a physical impossibility that he had set out from Enfield early in the morning. He might have caught an early milk train at a station three miles from the Castle and been in London by about eight. That was barely possible. He could soon have got down to Enfield in a car and started out again for Norwich shortly afterwards in his big black limousine. But Eagle House was watched, and the whole thing would have been such a near shave that it was a million chances to one ! against. Now we had, I reasoned, three confederates all at work with a united purpose. It was reassuring to find even that fact emerge out of the dark, but, even as I registered it, it seemed to dwindle away before the greater, and apparently indubitable, one that Rama had actually risen. With a great effort ( of will I refused the thought. I was arguing upon an arbitrary assumption I of my own —let'me stick to it and sec I where it led. I Three men—one purpose! Money? I went over in my mind all that I knew about Rama and General Munro. You are familiar with Donelly's discoveries. Money must go! Social influence and power? Rama might, of course, covet such things, but Munro certainly could not: He was an old recluse who, even now, had returned to the impenetrable seclusion of Ea"le House. If Rama, wished to spread some esoteric religion of bis own, surely he would not have waited for so many years before setting about it. Moreover, every indication pointed to the fact that personally he was a good Buddhist. He ! lived according to the tenets of Buddha, which are a commonplace to-day. He carried an image of Buddha about with

him, he constantly recited the Budd'hiet prayers. If mere vainglory and the lust of power had animated him, he might surely have gained that in his own land, where the ground was already prepared for him, and talents far less remarkable in the magic line would have raised him to an unheard-of eminence. I had reached so far when, like the first little trembling beam of light in the darkness, I had a most significant thought. Let mc assume for a moment that power was the man's object. If so, why bad he fastened on the Duchess of Norwich more than anyone else in England? I recollect that as this thought came to mc I slapped my knee with my band in the excitement of the moment, found a waiter immediately at my elbow, and had to order another sirop. Fortunately they were only harmless grenadines, innocent of alcohol. Why the duchess? In the first place, she had never had leanings towards fancy religions before. She was known as an eminent member of the Church of England. She was a most difficult person for any outsider to get in touch with, and granted intimacies to very f- ew--I'efore her association with the Indian everyone who knew her had given her credit for remarkable common sense! I could drop the assumption that power and publicity were what Rama wanted. He. and therefore his fellow-conspirators, wanted power over the Duchess of Norwich. That was sound logic, and I went away to Voison'a to dine.. (To T>e continued daily.)