Section 4

53

VII.

THE LOCKED DOOR/

THE reader will perhaps understand that at
first everything was so strange about me,
and my position was the outcome of such unex-
pected adventures, that I had no discernment
of the relative strangeness of this or that thing.
I followed the llama up the beach, and was
overtaken by Montgomery, who asked me not
to enter the stone enclosure. I noticed then
that the puma in its cage and the pile of pack-
ages had been placed outside the entrance to this
quadrangle.

I turned and saw that the launch had now
been unloaded, run out again, and was being
beached, and the white-haired man was walking
towards us. He addressed Montgomery.

" And now comes the problem of this unin-
vited guest. What are we to do with him ? "

" He knows something of science," said
Montgomery.

" I *m itching to get to work again — with

54

"The Locked Door."

this new stuff," said the white-haired man, nod-
ding towards the enclosure. His eyes grew
brighter.

"I daresay you are/* said Montgomery, in
anything but a cordial tone.

" We can't send him over there, and we can't
spare the time to build him a new shanty ;
and we certainly can't take him into our confi-
dence just yet."

"I'm in your hands," said I. I had no
idea of what he meant by " over there."

"I've been thinking of the same things,"
Montgomery answered. "There's my room
with the outer door — "

" That's it," said the elder man, promptly,
looking at Montgomery ; and all three of us
went towards the enclosure. " I 'm sorry to
make a mystery, Mr. Prendick; but you'll
remember you 're uninvited. Our little establish-
ment here contains a secret or so, is a kind of
Blue-Beard's chamber, in fact. Nothing very
dreadful, really, to a sane man ; but just now,
as we don't know you — "

"Decidedly," said I, "I should be a fool to
take offence at any want of confidence."
55

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

He twisted his heavy mouth into a faint smile,
— he was one of those saturnine people who
smile with the corners of the mouth down, —
and bowed his acknowledgment of my com-
plaisance. The main entrance to the enclosure
we passed ; it was a heavy wooden gate, framed
in iron and locked, with the cargo of the launch
piled outside it, and at the corner we came to a
small doorway I had not previously observed.
The white-haired man produced a bundle of keys
from the pocket of his greasy bluejacket, opened
this door, and entered. His keys, and the elabo-
rate locking-up of the place even while it was
still under his eye, struck me as peculiar. I
followed him, and found myself in a small apart-
ment, plainly but not uncomfortably furnished,
and with its inner door, which was slightly ajar,
opening into a paved courtyard. This inner
door Montgomery at once closed. A hammock
was slung across the darker corner of the room,
and a small unglazed window defended by an
iron bar looked out towards the sea.

This the white-haired man told me was to be
my apartment ; and the inner door, which " for
fear of accidents," he said, he would lock on the

56

"The Locked Door."

other side, was my limit inward. He called
my attention to a convenient deck-chair before
the window, and to an array of old books, —
chiefly, I found, surgical works and editions of
the Latin and Greek classics (languages I cannot
read with any comfort), on a shelf near the
hammock. He left the room by the outer door,
as if to avoid opening the inner one again.

"We usually have our meals in here," said
Montgomery, and then, as if in doubt, went out
after the other. "Moreau!" I heard him
call, and for the moment I do not think I noticed.
Then as I handled the books on the shelf it
came up in consciousness : Where had I heard
the name of Moreau before ? I sat down before
the window, took out the biscuits that still
remained to me, and ate them with an excellent
appetite. Moreau !

, Through the window I saw one of those
unaccountable men in white, lugging a packing-
case along the beach. Presently the window-
frame hid him. Then I heard a key inserted
and turned in the lock behind me. After a
little while I heard through the locked door the
noise of the staghounds, that had now been
57

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

brought up from the beach. They were not
barking, but sniffing and growling in a curious
fashion. I could hear the rapid patter of their
feet, and Montgomery's voice soothing them.

I was very much impressed by the elaborate
secrecy of these two men regarding the contents
of the place, and for some time I was thinking
of that and of the unaccountable familiarity of
the name of Moreau ; but so odd is the human
memory that I could not then recall that well-
known name in its proper connection. From
that my thoughts went to the indefinable queer-
ness of the deformed man on the beach. I
never saw such a gait, such odd motions as he
pulled at the box. I recalled that none of these
men had spoken to me, though most of them I
had found looking at me at one time or another
in a peculiarly furtive manner, quite unlike the
frank stare of your unsophisticated savage. In-
deed, they had all seemed remarkably taciturn,
and when they did speak, endowed with very
uncanny voices. What was wrong with them ?
Then I recalled the eyes of Montgomery's
ungainly attendant.

Just as I was thinking of him he came in.

"The Locked Door."

He was now dressed in white, and carried a
little tray with some coffee and boiled vegeta-
bles thereon. I could hardly repress a shud-
dering recoil as he came, bending amiably, and
placed the tray before me on the table. Then
astonishment paralysed me. Under his stringy
black locks I saw his ear ; it jumped upon me
suddenly close to my face. The man had
pointed ears, covered with a fine brown fur !

" Your breakfast, sair," he said.

I stared at his face without attempting to
answer him. He turned and went towards the
door, regarding me oddly over his shoulder. I
followed him out with my eyes ; and as I did
so, by some odd trick of unconscious cerebra-
tion, there came surging into my head the phrase,
"The Moreau Hollows" — was it? "The
Moreau — " Ah! It sent my memory back
ten years. "The Moreau Horrors!" The
phrase drifted loose in my mind for a moment,
and then I saw it in red lettering on a little
buff-coloured pamphlet, to read which made
one shiver and creep. Then I remembered
distinctly all about it. That long-forgotten
pamphlet came back with startling vividness to
59

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

my mind. I had been a mere lad then, and
Moreau was, I suppose, about fifty, — a promi-
nent and masterful physiologist, well-known in
scientific circles for his extraordinary imagina-
tion and his brutal directness in discussion.

Was this the same Moreau ? He had pub-
lished some very astonishing facts in connection
with the transfusion of blood, and in addition
was known to be doing valuable work on mor-
bid growths. Then suddenly his career was
closed. He had to leave England. A journal-
ist obtained access to his laboratory in the capa-
city of laboratory-assistant, with the deliberate
intention of making sensational exposures ; and
by the help of a shocking accident (if it was an
accident), his gruesome pamphlet became noto-
rious. On the day of its publication a wretched
dog, flayed and otherwise mutilated, escaped
from Moreau' s house. It was in the silly sea-
son, and a prominent editor, a cousin of the
temporary laboratory-assistant, appealed to the
conscience of the nation. It was not the first
time that conscience has turned against the
methods of research. The doctor was simply
howled out of the country. It may be that he
60

"The Locked Door."

deserved to be ; but I still think that the tepid
support of his fellow-investigators and his deser-
tion by the great body of scientific workers was
a shameful thing. Yet some of his experiments,
by the journalist's account, were wantonly cruel.
He might perhaps have purchased his social peace
by abandoning his investigations ; but he appar-
ently preferred the latter, as most men would
who have once fallen under the overmastering
spell of research. He was unmarried, and had
indeed nothing but his own interest to consider.

I felt convinced that this must be the same
man. Everything pointed to it. It dawned
upon me to what end the puma and the other
animals — which had now been brought with
other luggage into the enclosure behind the
house — were destined ; and a curious faint
odour, the halitus of something familiar, an
odour that had been in the background of my
consciousness hitherto, suddenly came forward
into the forefront of my thoughts. It was the
antiseptic odour of the dissecting-room. I heard
the puma growling through the wall, and one
of the dogs yelped as though it had been struck.

Yet surely, and especially to another scien-
61

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

tific man, there was nothing so horrible in vivi-
section as to account for this secrecy ; and by
some odd leap in my thoughts the pointed ears
and luminous eyes of Montgomery's attendant
came back again before me with the sharpest
definition. I stared before me out at the green
sea, frothing under a freshening breeze, and let
these and other strange memories of the last
few days chase one another through my mind.

What could it all mean ? A locked enclosure
on a lonely island, a notorious vivisector, and
these crippled and distorted men ?

62

VIII.

THE CRYING OF THE PUMA.

JV/l ONTGOMERY interrupted my tangle of
* » *• mystification and suspicion about one
o'clock, and his grotesque attendant followed
him with a tray bearing bread, some herbs and
other eatables, a flask of whiskey, a jug of water,
and three glasses and knives. I glanced askance
at this strange creature, and found him watch-
ing me with his queer, restless eyes. Mont-
gomery said he would lunch with me, but that
Moreau was too preoccupied with some work
to come.

" Moreau ! " said I. " I know that name."
" The devil you do ! " said he. " What an
ass I was to mention it to you ! I might have
thought. Anyhow, it will give you an inkling
of our — mysteries. Whiskey ? ' '
"No, thanks; Pm an abstainer."
" I wish I 'd been. But it *s no use locking

63

.

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

the door after the steed is stolen. It was that
infernal stuff which led to my coming here, —
that, and a foggy night. I thought myself in
luck at the time, when Moreau offered to get
me off. It's queer — "

"Montgomery," said I, suddenly, as the
outer door closed, " why has your man pointed
ears?"

"Damn!" he said, over his first mouthful
of food. He stared at me for a moment, and
then repeated, " Pointed ears ? "

"Little points to them," said I, as calmly
as possible, with a catch in my breath ; " and
a fine black fur at the edges ? "

He helped himself to whiskey and water with
great deliberation. '« I was under the impres-
sion — that his hair covered his ears."

"I saw them as he stooped by me to put
that coffee you sent to me on the table. And
his eyes shine in the dark."

By this time Montgomery had recovered from
the surprise of my question. " I always
thought," he said deliberately, with a certain
accentuation of his flavouring of lisp, "that
there was something the matter with his ears,

The Crying of the Puma.

from the way he covered them. What were
they like?"

I was persuaded from his manner that this
ignorance was a pretence. Still, I could hardly
tell the man that I thought him a liar.
"Pointed," I said ; " rather small and furry, —
distinctly furry. But the whole man is one of
the strangest beings I ever set eyes on."

A sharp, hoarse cry of animal pain came
from the enclosure behind us. Its depth and
volume testified to the puma. I saw Mont-
gomery wince.

"Yes?" he said.

" Where did you pick up the creature ? "

"San Francisco. He's an ugly brute, I
admit. Half-witted, you know. Can't remem-
ber where he came from. But I 'm used to
him, you know. We both are. How does
he strike you ? ' '

" He 's unnatural," I said. " There 's some-
thing about him — don't think me fanciful, but
it gives me a nasty little sensation, a tightening
of my muscles, when he comes near me. It 's
a touch — of the diabolical, in fact."

Montgomery had stopped eating while I told
5 65

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

him this. " Rum ! " he said. " /can't see it."
He resumed his meal. " I had no idea of it,"
he said, and masticated. " The crew of the
schooner must have felt it the same. Made a
dead set at the poor devil. You saw the cap-
tain?"

Suddenly the puma howled again, this time
more painfully. Montgomery swore under his
breath. I had half a mind to attack him about
the men on the beach. Then the poor brute
within gave vent to a series of short, sharp
cries.

"Your men on the beach," said I ; "what
race are they ? "

" Excellent fellows, aren't they ?" said he,
absent-mindedly, knitting his brows as the ani-
mal yelled out sharply.

I said no more. There was another outcry
worse than the former. He looked at me with
his dull grey eyes, and then took some more
whiskey. He tried to draw me into a discus-
sion about alcohol, professing to have saved my
life with it. He seemed anxious to lay stress
on the fact that I owed my life to him. I
answered him distractedly.
66

The Crying of the Puma.

Presently our meal came to an end ; the mis-
shapen monster with the pointed ears cleared
the remains away, and Montgomery left me
alone in the room again. All the time he had
been in a state of ill-concealed irritation at the
noise of the vivisected puma. He had spoken
of his odd want of nerve, and left me to the
obvious application.

I found myself that the cries were singularly
irritating, and they grew in depth and intensity
as the afternoon wore on. They were painful
at first, but their constant resurgence at last alto-
gether upset my balance. I flung aside a crib
of Horace I had been reading, and began to
clench my fists, to bite my lips, and to pace the
room. Presently I got to stopping my ears
with my fingers.

The emotional appeal of those yells grew
upon me steadily, grew at last to such an exqui-
site expression of suffering that I could stand it
in that confined room no longer. I stepped
out of the door into the slumberous heat of the
late afternoon, and walking past the main
entrance — locked again, I noticed — turned the
corner of the wall.

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

The crying sounded even louder out of doors.
It was as if all the pain in the world had found
a voice. Yet had I known such pain was in
the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe —
I have thought since — I could have stood it
well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice
and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes
troubling us. But in spite of the brilliant sun-
light and the green fans of the trees waving in
the soothing sea-breeze, the world was a con-
fusion, blurred with drifting black and red
phantasms, until I was out of earshot of the
house in the chequered wall.

68

IX.

THE THING IN THE FOREST.

T STRODE through the undergrowth that
* clothed the ridge behind the house, scarcely-
heeding whither I went ; passed on through the
shadow of a thick cluster of straight-stemmed
trees beyond it, and so presently found myself
some way on the other side of the ridge, and
descending towards a streamlet that ran through
a narrow valley. I paused and listened. The
distance I had come, or the intervening masses
of thicket, deadened any sound that might be
coming from the enclosure. The air was still.
Then with a rustle a rabbit emerged, and went
scampering up the slope before me. I hesitated,
and sat down in the edge of the shade.

The place was a pleasant one. The rivulet
was hidden by the luxuriant vegetation of the
banks save at one point, where I caught a trian-
gular patch of its glittering water. On the
farther side I saw through a bluish haze a tangle

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

of trees and creepers, and above these again the
luminous blue of the sky. Here and there a
splash of white or crimson marked the blooming
of some trailing epiphyte. I let my eyes wan-
der over this scene for a while, and then began
to turn over in my mind again the strange pecu-
liarities of Montgomery* 8 man. But it was too
hot to think elaborately, and presently I fell into
a tranquil state midway between dozing and
waking.