Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1901 — THE STOLEN BODY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE STOLEN BODY

By H. G. WELLS.

(Copyright, 1899, by H. G. Wells. J Mr. uessei the senior partner Iq the firm of Bessel, Hart & Brown of St. Paul’s churchyard, and for many years he was well known among those interested in psychical research as & liberal minded and conscientious investigator. He was an Unmarried man. and, instead of living in the suburbs, after the fashion of his class, be occupied rooms in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested Id the questions of thought transference and of apparitions of the living, and in November, 1896, he commenced a series of experiments in conjunction with Mr. Vincent of Staple inn in order to test the alleged possibility of projecting an apparition on oneself by force of will across an intervening space. The experiments were conducted In the following manner: At a prearranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the Albany and Mr. Vincent in his sitting room in Staple

stick. inn, and each then fixed his mind aa resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel had acquired the art of self hypnotism, and so far as he could he attempted first to hypnotize himself and then to project himself as a “phantom of the living’’ across the intervening space of nearly two miles into Mr. Vincent’s apartment. On several evenings this was tried without any satisfactory results, but on the fifth or sixth occasion Mr. Vincent did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition of Mr. Bessel standing in his room. He states that the appearance, although brief, was very vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel’s face was white and his expression anxious and, moreover, that his hair was disordered. For a moment Mr. Vincent, In spite of his state of expectation, was too surprised t© speak or move, and in that moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced over his shoulder and incontinently vanished. It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph any phantasm &een, but Mr. Vincent had not- the instant presence of mind to snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, and when he did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even by this partial success, he made a note of the exact time and at once took a cab to the Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result.

He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel’s outer door standing open to the night and the inner apartments lit and vacant and in extraordinary disorder. An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor. Its neck had been broken off against the ink pot on the bureau and lay beside it. An octagonal table which carried a bronze statuette and a number of choice books had been rudely overturned, and down the primrose paper of the wall Inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed, for ths mere pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chintz curtains had been violently torn from Its rings and thrust upon the fire, so that the smell of its smoldering filled the room. Indeed the whole place was disarranged in the strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincent, who had entered sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him, could scarcely believe his eyes abd stood staring helplessly at these unanticipated things. Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at the entrance lodge. “Where is Mr. Bessel?” he asked. “Do you know that all the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel’s room?” The porter said nothing, but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel’s apartment to see the state of affairs. “This -settles it.'” he said, surveying the lunatic confusion, “i didn’t kpow of this." Mr. Bessel’s gone _q£L He’s mad!” H¥ then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincent that about half ah hour previously—that is to say. about the time of Mr. Bessel’s apparition in Mr. Vincent’s rooms—the missing gentleman had rushed out of the gates of the Albany into Vigo street, hatless and with disordered hair, and had vanished in the direction of Bond street. “And as he went past me," said the porter, “he laughed a sort of gasping laugh, with his mouth wide open and his eyes glaring. I jell you, sir, he fair scared me, like this.”

According to his Imitation, It was anything but a pleasant laugh. “He waved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing, like that, and he said in a sort of fierce whisper, -Lifer just that one word, ‘Life!’ ” “Dear me!” said Mr. Vincent. “Tut, tut! Dear me!” He could think of nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised. He turned from the room to the porter and from the

porter to the room in gravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably Mr. Bessel would come back presently and explain what had happened their conversation was unable to proceed. “It might be a sudden toothache,” said the porter, “a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping on him suddenly like and driving him wild. I’ve broken things myself before now lc such a case.” He thought. “If it was. why should he say ‘Life!’ to me as he went past?” Mr. Vincent did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last Vincent, having done some more helpless staring and having addressed a note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous position on the bureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind to bis own premises in Staple inn. This affair had given him a shock. He was at a loss to account for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane hypothesis. He tried to read, but he could not do so. He went for a short walk and was so preoccupied that he narrowly escaped a cab at the top of Chancery lane, and at last, a full hour before his usual time, he went to bed. For a considerable time he could not sleep because of his memory of the silent confusion of Mr. Bessel’s apartment, and when at length he did attain an uneasy slumber it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of Mr. Bessel. He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly and with his face white and contorted, and Inexplicably mingled with bis appearance, suggested perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency to act. He even believes that he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter calling distressfully to him. though at the time he considered this to be an illusion. The vivid impression Remained though Mr. Vincent awoke. For a space he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed with that vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out of dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last he roused himself and turned over and went to sleep again,only for the dream to return with enhanced vividness. He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in overwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longer possible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire calamity. Por a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, and at last he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas and dressed and set out through the deserted streets—deserted save for a noiseless policeman or so and the

early news carts, for it was nearly half past 2 in the morning—toward Vigo street to inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned. But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some unaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street toward Covent Garden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He saw the market in front of him, a queer effect of glowing yellow lights and busy black figures. He became aware of a shouting and perceived a figure turn the corner by tlie hotel and run swiftly toward him. He knew at once that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel transfigured. He was hatless and disheveled, his collar was torn open, he grasped a bone handled walking cane by the ferrule end, and bis mouth was pulled awry. He ran with agile strides and very rapidly. Their encounter was the affair of an instant. “Bessel!” cried Vincent. The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincent or of his own name. Instead he eut at his friend savagely with the stick, hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye. Mr. Vincent, stunned and astonished, staggered back, lost his footing and fell heavily on the pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel leaped over him as he fell. When he« looked again, Mr. Bessel had vanished, and a policeman and a number of garden porters, and salesmen were rushing past toward Long Acre in hot nursnir. With the assistance of several garden porters, for the whole street was speedily alive with running people, Mr. Vincent struggled to his feet. He at once became the center of a crowd greedy to see his injury. A multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his safety and then to tell him of the behavior of the madman, as they regarded Mr. Bessel. He had suddenly appeared in the middle of the market screaming “Life! Life!”-striking left and right with a blood stained walking stick and dancing and shouting with laughter at each successful blow. A lad aud two women had broken heads, and he had smashed a man’s wrist, a little child had been knocked insensible, and for a time he had driven every one before him, so furious and resolute had his behavior been. Then he had made a raid upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through the window of the postoffiee and fled laughing after stunning the foremost of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him.

Mr. Vincent’s first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit of his friend, in order, if possible, to save him from the violence of the indignant people, but his action was slow. The blow had half stunned him, and while this was still no more than a resolution came the news, shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded his pursuers. At first Mr. Vincent could scarcely credit this, but the universality of the report and presently the dignified return of the two futile policemen convinced him. After some aimless inquiries he returned toward Staple inn padding a handkerchief to a now very painful nose: He was angry and astonished and perplexed. R appeared to him indisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst of his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make him appear

with ii sad white face in Mr. Vincent’s dreams seemed a 'problem beyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain this. It seemed to him at last that not simply Mr.. Bessel, but the order of tilings, must be insane. But he could think of nothing to do. He shut himself carefully in his room, lit his fire—it was a gas fire, with asbestus bricks —and, fearing fresh dreams if he went to bed, remained bathing his injured face or holding up books in a vain attempt to read until dawn. Throughout that vigil he had a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel was endeavoring to speak to him, but he would not let himself attend to any such belief. About dawn his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed and slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose later, unrested and anxious and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news of Mr. Bessel's aberration. It had come too late for them. 'Mr. Vincent’s perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added fresh irritation, became at last intolerable, and after a fruitless visit to the Albany he went down to St. Paul’s churchyard, to Mr. Hart, Mr. Bessel’s partner and, so far as Mr. Vincent knew, his nearest friend. He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing of the outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very vision that M*. Vincent had seen, Mr. Bessel, white and dislievearnestly by his gestures for help. That was his impression of the import of his signs. “1 was just going to look him up in the Albany when you arrived,” said Mr. Hart. “I was so sure of something being wrong with him.” As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided to inquire at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend. ‘‘He is bound to be laid by the heels,” said Mr. Hart. “He can’t go on at that pace for long.” But the police authorities had not laid Mr. Bessel by the heels, They confirmed Mr. Vincent’s overnight experiences and added fresh circumstances, some of an even graver character than those he knew, a list of smashed glass along the upper half of Tottenham Court road, an attack upon a policeman in Hampstead road and atrocious assaults upon a number of peaceful citizens. All these outrages were committed between 12:30 and 1:45 in the morning, and between those hours and.indeed from the very moment of Mr. Bessel’s first rush from his rooms-at 9:30 in the evening they could trace the deepening violence of liis fantastic career. For the last hour at least—from before 1, that is, until I:4s—he had run amuck through Loudon, eluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him. /

But after a quarter to 2 lie had vanished. Up to that hour witnesses were multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him or pursued him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to 2he had been seen running down the Euston road toward Baker Street flourishing a can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flame therefrom, at the windows ot the houses he passed, but none of the policemen on Euston road beyond the waxwork exhibition nor any of those in the sidestreets down which he must have passed had he left the Euston road had seen anything of him. Aliruptly he disappeared. Nothing of his

subsequent doings came to lignt in spite of the keenest inquiry. Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincent. He had found considerable comfort in Mr. Hart’s conviction, lie is bound to be laid by the lieels before long, and in that assurance he had been able to suspend liis mental perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined to add new impossibilities' to a pile already heaped beyond the powers of bis acceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory might not have played him some grotesque trick, debating whether any of these things could possibly have happened, and in the afternoon he hunted up Mr. Hart again to share the intolerable weight on bis mind. He found Mr. Hart engaged with a well known private detective, but as that gentleman accomplished nothing in this case'we need not enlarge upon bis proceedings. All that day Mr. Bessel’s whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active inquiry and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion in the back of Mr. Vincent’s mind that Mr. Bessel sought liis attention, and all through

"How did yon act this?” said Mr. Vincent. the night Mr. Bessel, with a Jear stained face of anguish, pursued him through his dreams. And whenever he saw Mr. Bessel in his dreams he also saw a number of other faces, vague, hut malignant, that seemed to be pursuing Mr, Bessel. It was only on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincent thought of the remarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting attention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her. She was stopping at the house of that well known inquirer, Dr. Wilson Paget, and Mr. Vincent, although lie had nevier met that gentleman before, repaired to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help, but scarcely had he mentioned the name of Bessel when Dr. Paget interrupted" him. “Last night, just at the end,” he said, “we had a communication.” He left the room and returned with a slate on which were certain words written in a handwriting shaky indeed, but indisputably the handwriting of Mr. Bessel. # k “llow did you got this?” said Mr. Vincent. “Do you mean”— [to be continued.]

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