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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Many Dimensions," Charles Williams weaves a masterful tapestry of metaphysical exploration and moral complexity, challenging the boundaries of time and space through a narrative steeped in both fantasy and philosophical inquiry. Set against the backdrop of a world where a mysterious and powerful gem intersects with human desires and spiritual truths, the story unfurls in a style that blends the vibrant imaginations of fantasy literature with the deeper intellectual currents of Christian theology. Williams skillfully employs rich symbolism and an intricate plot structure, reflecting his fascination with the nature of reality and divine transcendence, while engaging readers with elements of suspense and adventure. Charles Williams, a prominent figure in the Inklings'—a literary circle that included luminaries like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien'—imbibed the complex theological and philosophical concerns of his era into his writings. His own experiences as a member of the Oxford literary community and his deep commitment to Christian mysticism informed his exploration of themes such as divine love, the interplay of good and evil, and the nuances of human existence in "Many Dimensions." Williams's unique perspective stems not only from his literary background but also from his beliefs, making this work a profound reflection of his philosophical inquiries. This captivating narrative invites readers to engage with profound questions about the nature of the universe and the divine. "Many Dimensions" is essential for those who relish richly layered stories that challenge conventional perceptions of reality. Its blend of imagination, spiritual inquiry, and moral reflection makes it a compelling read for fans of speculative fiction and those seeking deeper truths within the literary realm. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Many Dimensions
Table of Contents
Introduction
When an object of absolute significance breaks into ordinary life, the human will must decide whether to master it or be mastered by it. Many Dimensions by Charles Williams sets this dilemma within a modern world that believes itself rational and self-possessed, then watches as that confidence fractures. The novel unfolds as a study of power under judgment: power of wealth, of intellect, of law, and of desire. Williams presents a drama in which the unseen demands as much attention as the seen, and where the cost of touching the sacred with utilitarian hands becomes the measure of every character’s integrity.
First published in the early 1930s—contemporary with its setting in modern Britain—Many Dimensions belongs to Williams’s distinctive strain of metaphysical thriller, a mode that blends speculative elements with the texture of everyday life. While anchored in offices, drawing rooms, and legal chambers, the book turns on a mystery whose roots are older than its urban backdrop. Williams, a poet, critic, and novelist later associated with the Inklings, uses the conventions of a page-turning narrative to frame philosophical and theological questions. The result is a work that feels at once timely to its moment and deliberately outside the ordinary limits of genre.
The premise is simple to state and complex in consequence: a small ancient Stone, connected in tradition with the wisdom of Solomon, comes into the possession of modern figures who disagree about what it is and what should be done with it. Some see profit, some see opportunity for prestige or control, and some sense a reality that cannot be reduced to use. As tests of authority, ownership, and responsibility multiply, the Stone’s nature refuses to be managed on human terms. The novel begins as a tale of acquisition and quickly becomes an examination of what happens when the transcendent confronts administrative certainty.
Readers should expect an experience that balances swift incident with meditative pauses. Williams’s style moves from dry, ironical wit to moments of austere grandeur, allowing office conversations and legal arguments to stand beside scenes of numinous pressure. The tone is not gothic so much as exacting: settings are plain, yet charged; dialogue is crisp, yet loaded with implication. With the scrutiny of a judicial inquiry and the urgency of a pursuit, the narrative maintains a steady, almost ceremonial rhythm. It is a novel that invites close attention to words, because words here are acts, and naming a thing alters how it can be approached.
At its heart the book explores power under moral law. It asks whether human intention can make a sacred thing serve private ends, and what form justice takes when ordinary statutes meet realities they were never written to govern. Themes of unity and division, multiplicity and singularity, recur as the Stone exposes the fissures within individuals and institutions. The conflict between possession and stewardship is central: who has the right to hold, interpret, or restrain what exceeds them? Williams also probes the relation between knowledge and humility, suggesting that to understand is not necessarily to control—and that the impulse to control may dissolve understanding.
These concerns reach beyond their period setting. Readers today will recognize debates about the ethics of discovery, the commodification of cultural and religious artifacts, and the responsibilities of science, law, and commerce in the face of disruptive possibilities. The novel’s pressure points—extraction versus reverence, efficiency versus wisdom, sovereignty versus accountability—parallel current questions about technology and its governance. Williams’s focus on how institutions react to the unprecedented remains striking: procedures matter, but so does the spirit animating them. In this way, Many Dimensions becomes a meditation on the limits of policy, and on the necessity of conscience when the rules are not enough.
What makes the book enduring is its refusal to separate thrill from thought. The narrative compels by action, yet the lingering effect is intellectual and spiritual: a sharpening of attention to the difference between using and receiving, between ownership and obedience. Without revealing its later turns, one can say that choices in the novel have weight that feels calculable and incalculable at once. Williams offers readers an exacting but generous invitation—to consider how a life, a society, or a system might be reordered when confronted by the genuinely significant. Many Dimensions holds that encounter before us with clarity, gravity, and an unsettling, luminous calm.
Synopsis
Many Dimensions follows the discovery and contested possession of a mysterious Stone said to come from the crown of King Solomon. Set largely in London, the narrative brings together financiers, scientists, jurists, and diplomats who react differently to the Stone’s extraordinary capacities. Lord Chief Justice Arglay, his perceptive secretary Chloe Burnett, the ambitious Sir Giles Tumulty, and a wealthy entrepreneur who has acquired the object form the core ensemble. The book proceeds as a sequence of inquiries, experiments, and negotiations, each revealing fresh implications for law, commerce, and conscience. Its movement traces how a singular artifact exposes the motives of those who seek to use it.
The story begins with the Stone’s purchase from a Persian prince, an act portrayed as both a transaction and a transgression. Initial trials reveal abilities that appear to surpass ordinary space and time, including instantaneous transport and the puzzling phenomenon of exact replication. These demonstrations are small, private, and tentative, yet they quickly attract the attention of those who foresee immense profit and power. The prince’s representatives protest, invoking sacred trust and covenant rather than mere ownership. From the outset, practical curiosity, reverent caution, and acquisitive desire collide, setting the pattern for the novel’s conflicts and aligning the narrative around contested meanings of possession.
Lord Arglay enters to advise on the Stone’s legal status, particularly the identity and title of duplicated forms. His chambers become a forum where metaphysical puzzles meet legal reasoning, and where words, definitions, and precedents carry real consequence. Chloe Burnett assists in careful experiments designed to respect limits while learning how the Stone operates. Arglay’s approach emphasizes precision and justice, weighing what it would mean for an object to be one and many at once. Their inquiries suggest that the Stone responds to intention as much as to technique, which raises questions about consent, rightful use, and whether certain powers can be contained within human rules.
In sharp contrast, Sir Giles Tumulty spearheads a program to apply the Stone to industry and science. Eager to standardize and scale what is barely understood, he assembles laboratories, technicians, and investors. The promise includes instantaneous transport of goods, the end of many logistical limits, and a redefinition of value in a world where perfect copies can exist. Trials proceed under pressure, revealing that results depend on subtle conditions and that the Stone does not reliably submit to coercion. The work’s tempo quickens as secrecy, patent claims, and competitive advantage drive choices, drawing the story toward hazards that accompany the marriage of haste and power.
Diplomatic complications escalate when Persian envoys assert that the Stone is a sacred trust bound to ancient obligations. Their claim challenges purely commercial or national frames, reframing the dispute as one involving vows, guardianship, and reverence. Negotiations pull in officials, lawyers, and intermediaries who must balance international relations with domestic interest. The tension between contract and covenant becomes a recurring motif. As public pressure grows and newspapers hint at astonishing experiments, the question of stewardship grows central: who may speak for an object whose effects disregard borders and customs, and what obligations attach to knowledge that can reorder the most basic assumptions about matter and motion.
Chloe’s role deepens as she proves unusually responsive to the Stone’s conditions. Her experiences are described with restraint yet suggest entry into a stillness where ordinary divisions give way to pattern and relation. She treats the object not as a tool but as a reality to which one must conform, and this posture yields outcomes others cannot replicate. Her choices generate friction with those who seek expedience, while aligning her more closely with Arglay’s measured conscience and the envoys’ reverence. Through her, the narrative explores the temper required to approach potent things safely, hinting that character can be as operative as method in determining results.
Attempts to harness the Stone at scale bring consequences. Failures and near disasters underscore that misuse has costs not limited to broken machines or balance sheets. Individuals exhibit strain, confusion, or fixation when their desires outrun their understanding. Questions arise about whether duplication alters meaning and whether transit without journey impoverishes the traveler. The novel presents these developments without spectacle, allowing implications to accumulate as minor irregularities become warnings. Public and private interests begin to overlap uncomfortably, and the possibility of legal exposure looms. Arglay seeks boundaries that will protect life and law, while others press forward, believing risk to be the price of discovery.
Events converge across laboratories, council rooms, and uncharted intervals of space and time. The origin and nature of the Stone are articulated more fully, drawing on traditions about Solomon, wisdom, and a name that orders creation. Characters undertake decisive movements to secure, surrender, or rightly define the object, often using the very capacities that have imperiled them. The book stages confrontations that are intellectual, moral, and practical, culminating in acts meant to clarify what may and may not be asked of the Stone. Without detailing outcomes, the narrative advances toward a settlement in which authority, consent, and intent are tested and made manifest.
Many Dimensions communicates that power is inseparable from right use and that reality includes moral and spiritual dimensions alongside the material. The Stone operates as a catalyst, revealing motives and compelling choices about obligation, reverence, and justice. The novel’s conclusion resolves legal and diplomatic threads in a manner consistent with its emphasis on stewardship over possession. It avoids simple reversals, instead presenting decisions that acknowledge limits and the conditions under which knowledge becomes life-giving rather than destructive. By tracing the fates of those who seek to command or to serve, the book affirms a central message: alignment with what is just confers true freedom.
Historical Context
Many Dimensions is set principally in contemporary London of the late 1920s and early 1930s, with crucial scenes tied to the Middle East, from which a powerful sacred stone is brought. The city appears as the imperial metropolis: courts, ministries, banks, and auction rooms where global flows of capital and culture converge. Telephones, taxis, and newspapers frame a brisk, modern tempo, while clubs and chambers evoke older hierarchies of law and status. The opposing locus is Persia (Iran), imagined through embassies, emissaries, and sacred precincts, signaling diplomatic friction and contested ownership of antiquities. The novel’s geography thereby juxtaposes imperial acquisition and metropolitan exploitation with claims of origin and restitution.
The interwar antiquities trade and Orientalism shape the narrative’s premise. After the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, a booming market centered in London and Paris circulated Near Eastern artifacts amid shifting laws on excavation and export. Egypt’s tightened regulations (notably after 1922) and Iran’s 1930 Law for the Preservation of National Antiquities sought to restrain removal of heritage. Dealers, private collectors, and museums competed for prestige objects; provenance disputes escalated. Williams mirrors these realities through the contested acquisition of a sacred stone taken from a Persian setting and trafficked into London. The book’s conflicts—legal, diplomatic, and moral—dramatize repatriation debates and the ethics of extracting sacred objects for Western profit.
British involvement in Iranian resources provides a broader imperial context. The 1901 D’Arcy concession led to the 1908 oil strike at Masjed Soleiman and the creation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) in 1909; by 1914 the British government held a controlling stake. Iranian efforts under Reza Shah Pahlavi (crowned 1926 after the 1921 coup) sought to centralize authority and renegotiate foreign privileges, culminating in the 1932 cancellation of the D’Arcy concession and the 1933 agreement revising terms. Many Dimensions echoes these tensions: a Western metropolis presumes entitlement to extract, study, and monetize an Eastern treasure, while Persian representatives assert sovereignty. The stone’s contested status becomes a parable of imperial leverage and national self-assertion.
The shocks of the Great Depression and Britain’s 1931 financial crisis sharpen the novel’s critique of acquisitive power. Following the 1929 Wall Street Crash, Britain faced a sterling crisis and suspended the gold standard on 21 September 1931; a National Government formed in August 1931 amid spending cuts and mass unemployment exceeding two million. Financial speculation, currency panics, and schemes for rapid enrichment dominated headlines. Williams’s plot—centered on efforts to multiply, commercialize, or technologically exploit the stone—reflects anxieties about wealth conjured without work, inflationary illusions, and moral hazard. By staging catastrophe around limitless replication and instant transport, the book allegorizes interwar fears of destabilized value, the lure of windfall gains, and the corrosion of civic duty.
Contemporary debates over British law and executive power also inform the story. The interwar period saw major legal reforms, including the Law of Property Act 1925 and widening civic inclusion after the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. Yet concerns about administrative overreach grew; Lord Chief Justice Gordon Hewart’s The New Despotism (1929) warned that the executive was evading judicial scrutiny. In Williams’s narrative, the figure of the judge and the courtroom assert the rule of law against technocratic shortcuts and commercial coercion. The book connects miraculous power to lawful order, insisting that authority must be bounded by justice rather than by expediency—an argument resonant with contemporary disputes over prerogative and accountability.
A vibrant interwar fascination with psychical research and new physics provides a cultural backdrop. After the mass bereavements of 1914–1918, spiritualism surged; organizations like the Society for Psychical Research (founded 1882) and popular writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle (The History of Spiritualism, 1926) sustained public debate. Meanwhile, the 1919 Eddington expedition’s confirmation of relativity and the wide readership of J. W. Dunne’s An Experiment with Time (1927) popularized non-Euclidean space and multiple dimensions. Williams channels these currents through the stone’s manipulation of space, time, and multiplicity, while cautioning that metaphysical realities obey moral order. The novel refracts contemporary hopes for transcendence and fears of scientific hubris into concrete social consequences.
Anti-imperial and nationalist movements across the Middle East contextualize the book’s Persian claims. Iran’s earlier Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911) fostered legal modernity and national assertion; Reza Shah’s subsequent reforms (from 1925) centralized state power, modernized courts, and pursued symbols of heritage. Across the region, the 1919 Egyptian Revolution and the 1920 Iraqi revolt against the British Mandate asserted self-rule, reshaping diplomatic norms. Disputes over treasures—such as long-standing controversies surrounding Persian and Mesopotamian artifacts in European museums—kept sovereignty and cultural patrimony in view. Many Dimensions mirrors these struggles as Eastern custodians insist that sacred property is not a tradable commodity, pressing London’s elites to confront claims grounded in faith, law, and nationhood.
The novel serves as a social and political critique by exposing how imperial entitlement, financial opportunism, and administrative expediency degrade justice. Williams arraigns the mindset that treats the sacred—and by extension foreign resources and cultures—as instruments for profit or power. London’s boardrooms and ministries embody class privilege and technocratic hubris, while the courtroom and conscientious civil servants articulate limits on such appetites. The book critiques speculative capitalism that confuses multiplication with value and condemns the casual plunder of colonized peoples. By aligning lawful restraint with moral order, it indicts interwar Britain’s injustices—economic, imperial, and bureaucratic—and calls for an ethic of responsibility toward persons, nations, and the transcendent.
Many Dimensions
CHAPTERI
THE STONE
'Do you mean,' Sir Giles said, 'that the thing never gets smaller?'
'Never,' the Prince answered. 'So much of its virtue has entered into its outward form that whatever may happen to it there is no change. From the beginning it was as it is now.'
'Then by God, sir,' Reginald Montague exclaimed, 'you've got the transport of the world in your hands.'
Neither of the two men made any answer. The Persian, sitting back in his chair, and Sir Giles, sitting forward on the edge of his, were both gazing at the thing which lay on the table. It was a circlet of old, tarnished, and twisted gold, in the centre of which was set a cubical stone measuring about half an inch every way, and having apparently engraved on it certain Hebrew letters. Sir Giles picked it up, rather cautiously, and concentrated his gaze on them. The motion awoke a doubt in Montague's mind.
'But supposing you chipped one of the letters off?' he asked. 'Aren't they awfully important? Wouldn't that destroy the—the effect?'
'They are the letters of the Tetragrammaton[2],' the Persian said drily, 'if you call that important. But they are not engraved on the Stone; they are in the centre—they are, in fact, the Stone.'
'O!' Mr. Montague said vaguely, and looked at his uncle Sir Giles, who said nothing at all. This, after a few minutes, seemed to compel Montague to a fresh attempt.
'You see, sir?' he said, leaning forward almost excitedly. 'If what the Prince says is true, and we've proved that it is, a child could use it.[1q]'
'You are not, I suppose,' the Persian[4] asked, 'proposing to limit it to children? A child could use it, but in adult hands it may be more dangerous.'
'Dangerous be damned,' Montague said more excitedly than before, 'It's a marvellous chance—[2q]it's … it's a miracle. The thing's as simple as pie. Circlets like this with the smallest fraction of the Stone in each. We could ask what we liked for them—thousands of pounds each, if we like. No trains, no tubes, no aeroplanes[6]. Just the thing on your forehead, a minute's concentration, and whoosh!'
The Prince made a sudden violent movement, and then again a silence fell.
It was late at night. The three were sitting in Sir Giles Tumulty's house at Ealing—Sir Giles himself, the traveller and archaeologist; Reginald Montague, his nephew and a stockbroker; and the Prince Ali Mirza Khan, First Secretary to the Persian Ambassador at the court of St. James. At the gate of the house stood the Prince's car; Montague was playing with a fountain-pen; all the useful tricks of modern civilization were at hand. And on the table, as Sir Giles put it slowly down, lay all that was left of the Crown of Suleiman[12] ben Daood, King in Jerusalem.
Sir Giles looked across at the Prince. 'Can you move other people with it, or is it like season-tickets[7]?'
'I do not know,' the Persian said gravely. 'Since the time of Suleiman (may the Peace be upon him!) no one has sought to make profit from it.'
'Ha!' said Mr. Montague, surprised. 'O come now, Prince!'
'Or if they have,' the Prince went on, 'they and their names and all that they did have utterly perished from the earth.'
'Ha!' said Mr. Montague again, a little blankly. 'O well, we can see. But you take my advice and get out of Rails. Look here, uncle, we want to keep this thing quiet.'
'Eh?' Sir Giles said. 'Quiet? No, I don't particularly want to keep it quiet. I want to talk to Palliser about it—after me he knows more about these things than anyone. And I want to see Van Eilendorf—and perhaps Cobham, though his nonsense about the double pillars at Baghdad was the kind of tripe that nobody but a broken-down Houndsditch[9] sewer-rat would talk.'
The Prince stood up. 'I have shown you and told you these things,' he said, 'because you knew too much already, and that you may see how very precious is the Holy Thing which you have there. I ask you again to restore it to the guardians from whom you stole it. I warn you that if you do not——'
'I didn't steal it,' Sir Giles broke in. 'I bought it. Go and ask the fellow who sold it to me.'
'Whether you stole by bribery or by force is no matter,' the Prince went on. 'You very well know that he who betrayed it to you broke the trust of generations. I do not know what pleasure you find in it or for what you mean to use it, unless indeed you will make it a talisman for travel. But however that may be, I warn you that it is dangerous to all men [3q]and especially dangerous to such unbelievers as you. There are dangers within the Stone, and other dangers from those who were sworn to guard the Stone. I offer you again as much money as you can desire if you will return it.'
'O well, as to money,' Reginald Montague said, 'of course my uncle will have a royalty—a considerable royalty—on all sales and that'll be a nice little bit in a few months. Yours isn't a rich Government anyhow, is it? How many millions do you owe us?'
The Prince took no notice. He was staring fiercely and eagerly at Sir Giles, who put out his hand again and picked up the circlet.
'No,' he said, 'no, I shan't part with it. I want to experiment a bit. The bastard asylum attendant who sold it to me——'
The Prince interrupted in a shaking voice. 'Take care of your words,' he said. 'Outcast and accursed as that man now is, he comes of a great and royal family. He shall writhe in hell for ever, but even there you shall not be worthy to see his torment.'
'—said there was hardly anything it wouldn't do,' Sir Giles finished. 'No, I shan't ask Cobham. Palliser and I will try it first. It was all perfectly legal, Prince, and all the Governments in the world can't make it anything else.'
'I do not think Governments will recover it,' the Prince said. 'But death is not a monopoly of Governments. If I had not sworn to my uncle——'
'O it was your uncle, was it?' Sir Giles asked. 'I wondered what it was that made you coo so gently. I rather expected you to be more active about it to-night.'
'You try me very hard,' the Prince uttered. 'But I know the Stone will destroy you at last.'
'Quite, quite,' Sir Giles said, standing up. 'Well, thank you for coming. If I could have pleased you, of course…. But I want to know all about it first.'
The Prince looked at the letters in the Stone. 'I think you will know a great deal then,' he said, salaamed deeply to it, and without bowing to the men turned and left the house.
Sir Giles went after him to the front door, though they exchanged no more words, and, having watched him drive away returned to find his nephew making hasty notes.
'I don't see why we need a company,' he said. 'Just you and I, eh?'
'Why you?' Sir Giles asked. 'What makes you think you're going to have anything to do with it?'
'Why, you told me,' Montague exclaimed. 'You offered me a hand in the game if I'd be about to-night when the Prince came in case he turned nasty.'
'So I did,' his uncle answered. 'Yes—well, on conditions. If there is any money in it, I shall want some of it. Not as much as you do, but some. It's always useful, and I had to pay pretty high to get the Stone. And I don't want a fuss made about it—not yet.'
'That's all right,' Montague said. 'I was thinking it might be just as well to have Uncle Christopher in with us.'
'Whatever for?' Sir Giles asked.
'Well … if there's any legal trouble, you know,' Montague said vaguely. 'I mean—if it came to the Courts we might be glad—of course, I don't know if they could—but anyhow he'd probably notice it if I began to live on a million—and some of these swine will do anything if their pockets are touched—all sorts of tricks they have—but a Chief Justice is a Chief Justice—that is, if you didn't mind——'
'I don't mind,' Sir Giles said. 'Arglay's got a flat-footed kind of intellect; that's why he's Chief Justice, I expect. But for what it's worth, and if they did try any international law business. But they can't; there was nothing to prevent that fellow selling it to me if he chose, nor me buying. I'll get Palliser here as soon as I can.'
'I wonder how many we ought to make,' Montague said. 'Shall we say a dozen to start with? It can't cost much to make a dozen bits of gold—need it be gold? Better, better. Better keep it in the same stuff—and it looks more for the money. The money—why, we can ask a million for each—for what'll only cost a guinea or two….' He stopped, appalled by the stupendous vision, then he went on anxiously, 'The Prince did say a bit any size would do, didn't he? and that this fellow'—he pointed a finger at the Stone—'would keep the same size? It means a patent, of course; so if anybody else ever did get hold of the original[10] they couldn't use it. Millions … millions….'
'Blast your filthy gasbag of a mouth!' Sir Giles said. 'You've made me forget to ask one thing. Does it work in time as well as space? We must try, we must try.' He sat down, picked up the Crown, and sat frowning at the Divine Letters[8].
'I don't see what you mean,' Reginald said, arrested in his note-taking. 'Time? Go back, do you mean?' He considered, then, 'I shouldn't think anyone would want to go back,' he said.
'Forward then,' Sir Giles answered. 'Wouldn't you like to go forward to the time when you've got your millions?'
Reginald gaped at him. 'But … I shouldn't have them,' he began slowly, 'unless … eh? O if I'm going to … then I should be able to jump to when … but … I don't see how I could get at them unless I knew what account they were in. I shouldn't be that me, should I … or should I?'
As his brain gave way, Sir Giles grinned. 'No,' he said almost cheerfully, 'you'd have the money but with your present mind. At least I suppose so. We don't know how it affects consciousness. It might be an easy way to suicide—ten minutes after death.'
Reginald looked apprehensively at the Crown. 'I suppose it wouldn't go wrong?' he ventured.
'That we don't know,' Sir Giles answered cheerfully. 'I daresay your first millionaire will hit the wrong spot, and be trampled underfoot by wild elephants in Africa. However, no one will know for a good while.'
Reginald went back to his notes.
Meanwhile the Prince Ali drove through the London streets till he reached the Embassy, steering the car almost mechanically while he surveyed in his mind the position in which he found himself. He foresaw some difficulty in persuading his chief, who concealed under a sedate rationalism an almost intense scepticism, of the disastrous chance which, it appeared to the Prince, had befallen the august Relic. Yet not to attempt to enlist on the side of the Faith such prestige and power as lay in the Embassy would be to abandon it to the ungodly uses of Western financiers. Ali himself had been trained through his childhood in the Koran[13] and the traditions, and, though the shifting policies of Persia had flung him for awhile into the army and afterwards into the diplomatic service his mind moved with most ease in the romantic regions of myth. Suleiman ben Daood, he knew, was a historic figure—the ruler of a small nation which, in the momentary decrease of its two neighbours, Egypt and Assyria, had attained an unstable pre-eminence. But Suleiman was also one of the four great world-shakers before the Prophet, a commander of the Faithful, peculiarly favoured by Allah. He had been a Jew, but the Jews in those days were the only witnesses to the Unity. 'There is no God but God,' he murmured to himself, and cast a hostile glance at a crucifix which stood as a war memorial in the grounds of a church near the Embassy. '"Say: for those who believe not is the torment of hell: an evil journey shall it be."' With which quotation he delivered the car to a servant and went in to find the Ambassador, whom he discovered half-asleep over the latest volume of Memoirs. He bowed and waited in silence.
'My dear Ali,' the Ambassador said, rousing himself. 'Did you have a good evening?'
'No,' the young man answered coldly.
'I didn't expect you would,' his chief said. 'You orthodox young water-drinkers can hardly expect to enjoy a dinner. Was it, so to speak, a dinner?'
'I was concerned, sir,' the Prince said, 'with the Crown of Suleiman[5], on whom be the Peace.'
'Really,' the Ambassador asked. 'You really saw it? And is it authentic?'
'It is without doubt the Crown and the Stone,' Ali answered. The Ambassador stared, but Ali went on. 'And it is in the hands of the infidel. I have seen one of these dogs——'
His chief frowned a little. 'I have asked you,' he said, '—even when we are alone—to speak of these people without such phrases.'
'I beg your Excellency's pardon,' the Prince said. 'I have seen one of them use it—by the Permission—and return unharmed. It is undoubtedly the Crown.'
'The crown of a Jew?' the Ambassador murmured. 'My friend, I do not say I disbelieve you, but—have you told your uncle?'
'I reported first to you, sir,' the Prince answered. 'If you wish my uncle——' He paused.
'O by all means, by all means,' the Ambassador said, getting up. 'Ask him to come here.' He stood stroking his beard while a servant was dispatched on the errand, and until a very old man, with white hair, bent and wrinkled, came into the room.
'The Peace be upon you, Hajji Ibrahim,' he said in Persian, while the Prince kissed his uncle's hand. 'Do me the honour to be seated. I desire you to know that your nephew is convinced of the authenticity of that which Sir Giles Tumulty[1] holds.' He eyed the old man for a moment. 'But I do not clearly know,' he ended, 'what you now wish me to do.'
Hajji Ibrahim looked at his nephew. 'And what will this Sir Giles Tumulty do with the sacred Crown?' he asked.
'He himself,' the Prince said carefully, 'will examine it and experiment with it, may the dogs of the street devour him! But there was also present a young man, his relation, who desires to make other crowns from it and sell them for money. For he sees that by the least of the graces of the divine Stone those who wear it may pass at once from place to place, and there are many who would buy such power at a great price.' The formal phrases with which he controlled his rage broke suddenly and he closed in colloquial excitement, 'He will form a company and put it on the market.'
The old man nodded. 'And even though Iblis[17] destroy him——' he began.
'I implore you, my uncle,' the young Prince broke in, 'to urge upon his Excellency the horrible sacrilege involved. It is a very dreadful thing for us that by the fault of our house this thing should come into the possession of the infidels. It is not to be borne that they should put it to these uses; it is against the interests of our country and the sanctity of our Faith.'
The Ambassador, his head on one side, was staring at his shoes. 'It might perhaps be held that the Christians derive as much from Judah as we,' he said.
'It will not so be held in Tehran and in Delhi and in Cairo and in Beyrout and in Mecca,' the Prince answered. 'I will raise the East against them before this thing shall be done.'
'I direct your attention,' the Ambassador said stiffly,' to the fact that it is for me only to talk of what shall or shall not be done, under the sanction of Reza Shah who governs Persia to-day.'
'Sir,' the Prince said, 'in this case it is a crown greater than the diadem of Reza Shah that is at stake.'
'With submission,' the old man broke in, 'will not your Excellency make representations to the English Government? This is not a matter which any Government can consider without alarm.'
'That is no doubt so,' the Ambassador allowed. 'But, Hajji Ibrahim, if I go to the English Government and say that one of their nationals, by bribing a member of your house, has come into the possession of a very sacred relic they will not be in the mind to take it from him; and if I add that this gives men power to jump about like grasshoppers they will ask me for proof.' He paused. 'And if you could give them proof, or if this Sir Giles would let them have it, do you think they would restore it to us?'
'Will you at least try, sir?' Ali asked.
'Why, no,' the Ambassador answered. 'No, I do not think I will even try. It is but the word of Hajji Ibrahim here. Had he not known of the treachery of his kinsmen and come to England by the same boat as Giles Tumulty we should have known very little of what had happened, and that vaguely. But as it is, we were warned of what you call the sacrilege, and now you have talked to him, and you are convinced. But what shall I say to the Foreign Minister? No; I do not think I will try.'
'You do not believe it,' the Hajji said. 'You do not believe that this is the Crown of Suleiman or that Allah put a mystery into it when His Permission bestowed it on the King?'
The Ambassador considered. 'I have known you a long while,' he said thoughtfully, 'and I will tell you what I believe. I know that your family, which has always been known for a very holy house, has held for centuries certain relics, and has preserved them in great secrecy and remoteness. I know that among them tradition has said that there is the Crown of the King, and that, but a few weeks since, one of the keepers was bribed to part with this Crown—if such it be—to an Englishman. I believe that many curious powers exist in such things, lasting for a longer or shorter time. And—because I believe Ali—I believe that it has seemed to him that a man has been here and there in a moment. But how, or whether indeed, this has been I do not know, and I do not desire to argue upon it with the English ministers.' He shook his head. 'I risked too much even when I permitted you semi-officially to try and buy it back from Sir Giles.'
'But he would not sell it,' the Prince cried.
'A very natural feeling,' the Ambassador said, and added rather incautiously, 'If I had it myself I don't suppose I should sell it.'
'Then,' the Prince insisted, 'if your Excellency will do nothing, it is for me to act. There is a sin upon my house till I recover the Crown.'
'And what will you do, my friend?' the Ambassador asked.
'I shall cause all my relatives and my acquaintances in Persia to know of it, and I will take such an oath that they will certainly believe,' the Prince answered. 'I will send the news of it through all the palaces and bazaars. I will cause this sacrilege to be known in every mosque, and the cry against the English shall go from Adrianople to Hong Kong. I will see if I can do a little in all the places of Islam.'
'You will make the English Government curious, I believe,' the Ambassador said, 'and you may kill a few soldiers. But I do not think you will recover the Crown. Also you will do these things against my will.'
Hajji Ibrahim said suddenly, 'By the Permission it was taken; by the Permission it will return. When the Unity deigned to bestow the Stone upon the King it was not that he might go swiftly from place to place. I think it shall return to the Keepers only when one shall use it for the journey that is without space, and I do not think that shall be you, my nephew, nor any of us. Let spies be set upon the infidels and let us know what they do. But do not let us wake the bazaars. I do not think that will help you at all.'
'And the English Government?' the Ambassador asked.
'A soft word in the ear of a friend,' the Hajji said. 'Be very friendly with them—and that your Excellency may well do, for you are almost as one of them. But speak only of a relic and not of the virtues of the relic; seek peace and ensue it, as their scriptures say. The English will not have war for the sake of Giles Tumulty, unless their pride is touched.' He rose to his feet. 'The Peace be upon you,' he said and went to the door.
CHAPTERII
THE PUPIL OF ORGANIC LAW
'You ought to know by now,' Lord Arglay said into the telephone, 'that I can't possibly put any money into your companies…. Cæsar's wife…. No, I am…. O never mind…. Yes…. Certainly…. As much as you like…. Lunch then.' He put the receiver back. 'It's an extraordinary thing,' he went on to Chloe Burnett, as she lifted her hands again to the typewriter, 'that Reginald won't realize how careful I have to be of what my money is in. It's a wonder I have any private income at all. As it is, whenever I give a decision in a financial case I expect to be left comparatively penniless in a month or two.'
'Does Mr. Montague want you to invest?' Miss Burnett asked.
'He wants me to give him five hundred, so far as I can understand,' Lord Arglay said, 'to put in the best thing that ever was. What is the best thing that ever was?'
Miss Burnett looked at her typewriter and offered no opinion.
'I suppose that I ought to think the Twelve Tables were,' the Chief Justice went on, 'officially—or the Code Napoléon—but they're rather specialist. And anyhow when you say "that ever was," do you mean that it's stopped being? Or can it still be?… Miss Burnett,' he added after a pause, 'I was asking you a question.'
'I don't know, Lord Arglay,' Chloe said patiently. 'I never can answer that sort of question. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "was." But oughtn't we to get on with the rest of the chapter before lunch?'
Lord Arglay sighed and looked at his notes. 'I suppose so, but I'd much rather talk. Was there ever a best thing that ever was? Never mind; you're right as usual. Where were we? The judgement of Lord Mansfield——' He began dictating.
There was, in fact, time for an hour's work before Mr. Montague arrived for lunch. Chloe Burnett had been engaged six months before by Lord Arglay as general intellectual factotum when he had determined to begin work on his Survey of Organic Law. When the Chief Justice was at the Courts she spent her time reducing to typed order whatever material Lord Arglay left ready for her the night before. But during the vacation, since he had remained in town, it had become a habit for them to lunch together, and neither Chloe's intention of withdrawing or Mr. Montague's obvious uneasiness caused Lord Arglay to break it.
'Of course you'll lunch here,' he said to Chloe, and to Mr. Montague's private explanations that the matter in hand was very secret, 'That's all right; two can spoil a secret but three make a conspiracy, which is much safer.'
'And now,' he said to his nephew after they were settled, 'what is it? What do you want me to put my money in this time? I shan't, of course, but what's it all about?'
'Well, it's a kind of transport,' Reginald said. 'It came to me through Uncle Giles, who wanted me to help him in an experiment.'
'Was it a dangerous experiment?' Lord Arglay asked.
'O I don't think dangerous,' Montague answered. 'Unusual perhaps, but not dangerous. When he came back from Baghdad this time he brought with him a funny kind of a thing, something … well, something like a crown and something … something…'
'Something not,' said Lord Arglay. 'Quite. Well?'
'Made of gold,' Reginald went on, 'with a stone—that size … in the middle. Well, so he asked me over to help him experiment, and there was a man from the Persian Embassy there too, who said it was what Sir Giles thought it was—at least, he'd bought it as being—but that doesn't matter. Well now, this thing—I know you won't believe it—it sounds so silly; only you know I did it. Not Sir Giles—he said he wanted to observe, but I did. The Persian fellow was rather upset about it, at least not upset, but a bit high in the air, you know. Rather frosty. But I'm bound to say he met us quite fairly, said he was perfectly willing to admit that we had it, and to make it clear to us what it was; only he must have it back. But that would have been too silly.'
As Mr. Montague paused for a moment Lord Arglay looked at Chloe. 'It's a fact I've continually observed in the witness box,' he said abstractedly, 'that nine people out of ten, off their own subject, are incapable of lucidity, whereas on their own subject they can be as direct as a straight line before Einstein. I had a fellow once who couldn't put three words together sanely; we were all hopeless, till counsel got him on his own business—which happened to be statistics of the development of industry in the Central American Republics; and then for about five minutes I understood exactly what had been happening there for the last seventy years. Curious. You and I are either silent or lucid. Yes, Reginald? Never mind me, I've often been meaning to tell Miss Burnett that, and it just came into my mind. Yes?'
'O he was lucid enough,' Reginald said. 'Well it seems this thing was supposed to be the crown of King Suleiman, but of course as to that I can't say. But I can tell you this.' He pointed a fork at the Chief Justice. 'I put that thing on my head—' Chloe gave a small gasp—'and I willed myself to be back in my rooms in Rowland Street, and there I was.' He stopped. Lord Arglay and Chloe were both staring at him. 'There I was,' he repeated. 'And then I willed myself back at Ealing, and there I was.'
Chloe went on staring. Lord Arglay frowned a little. 'What do you mean?' he said, with a sound of the Chief Justice in his voice.
'I mean that I just was,' Reginald said victoriously. 'I don't know how I got there. I felt a little dizzy at the time, and I had a headache of sorts afterwards. But without any kind of doubt I was one minute in Ealing and the next in Rowland Street, one minute in Rowland Street and the next in Ealing.'
The two listeners looked at each other, and were silent for two or three minutes. Reginald leaned back and waited for more.
Lord Arglay said at last, 'I won't ask you if you were drunk, Reginald, because I don't think you'd tell me this extraordinary story if you were drunk then unless you were drunk now, which you seem not to be. I wonder what exactly it was that Giles did. Sir Giles Tumulty, Miss Burnett, is one of the most cantankerously crooked birds I have ever known. He is, unfortunately, my remote brother-in-law; his brother was Reginald's mother's second husband—you know the kind of riddle-me-ree relationship. He's obscurely connected with diabolism in two continents; he has written a classic work on the ritual of Priapus; he is the first authority in the world on certain subjects, and the first authority in hell on one or two more. Yet he never seems to do anything himself; he's always in the background as an interested observer. I wonder what exactly it was that he did and still more I wonder why he did it.'
'But he didn't do anything,' Reginald said indignantly. 'He just sat and watched.'
