“There, my dear Colonel Wragge,” he said gently, “you touch the heart of the whole thing. You ask ‘Why.’ That is precisely our problem.” He held the soldier’s eyes firmly with his own. “And that, too, I think, we shall soon know. Come and let us talk over a plan of action—that room with the double doors, perhaps.”
The word “action” calmed him a little, and he led the way, without further speech, back into the house, and down the long stone passage to the room where we had heard his stories on the night of our arrival. I understood from the doctor’s glance that my presence would not make the interview easier for our host, and I went upstairs to my own room—shaking.
But in the solitude of my room the vivid memories of the last hour revived so mercilessly that I began to feel I should never in my whole life lose the dreadful picture of Miss Wragge running—that dreadful human climax after all the non-human mystery in the wood—and I was not sorry when a servant knocked at my door and said that Colonel Wragge would be glad if I would join them in the little smoking-room.
“I think it is better you should be present,” was all Colonel Wragge said as I entered the room. I took the chair with my back to the window. There was still an hour before lunch, though I imagine that the usual divisions of the day hardly found a place in the thoughts of any one of us.
The atmosphere of the room was what I might call electric. The Colonel was positively bristling; he stood with his back to the fire, fingering an unlit black cigar, his face flushed, his being obviously roused and ready for action. He hated this mystery. It was poisonous to his nature, and he longed to meet something face to face—something he could gauge and fight. Dr. Silence, I noticed at once, was sitting before the map of the estate which was spread upon a table. I knew by his expression the state of his mind. He was in the thick of it all, knew it, delighted in it, and was working at high pressure. He recognised my presence with a lifted eyelid, and the flash of the eye, contrasted with his stillness and composure, told me volumes.
“I was about to explain to our host briefly what seems to me afoot in all this business,” he said without looking up, “when he asked that you should join us so that we can all work together.” And, while signifying my assent, I caught myself wondering what quality it was in the calm speech of this undemonstrative man that was so full of power, so charged with the strange, virile personality behind it, and that seemed to inspire us with his own confidence as by a process of radiation.
“Mr. Hubbard,” he went on gravely, turning to the soldier, “knows something of my methods, and in more than one—er—interesting situation has proved of assistance. What we want now”—and here he suddenly got up and took his place on the mat beside the Colonel, and looked hard at him—“is men who have self-control, who are sure of themselves, whose minds at the critical moment will emit positive forces, instead of the wavering and uncertain currents due to negative feelings—due, for instance, to fear.”
He looked at us each in turn. Colonel Wragge moved his feet farther apart, and squared his shoulders; and I felt guilty but said nothing, conscious that my latent store of courage was being deliberately hauled to the front. He was winding me up like a clock.
“So that, in what is yet to come,” continued our leader, “each of us will contribute his share of power, and ensure success for my plan.”
“I’m not afraid of anything I can see,” said the Colonel bluntly.