The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

Now sometimes, of course, these resources I have mentioned are purely ridiculous, as witness that noble and ancient Order which directs its initiates, when they are blindfold, to crawl step by step up a flight of stairs, only to fall with a splash from the top into an artfully-arranged tank of lukewarm water at the bottom. Also, there is a body of apparently sane men in existence who have come together in the sacred name of charity and who find the climax of artistic realism in the disguise of themselves in long white beards and cloaks and in a profound darkness, which leaves them free to play practical jokes of the most stupid description on the strangers within their gates.

On the other hand, by the use of waxen effigies and coffins and other symbols of the shortness of life, there are associations which try the nerves of the candidate in the most severe fashion.

I am no enemy of secret societies and no friend. Possibly, with two or three exceptions, they are none of them very much good either to the men who belong to them or to the cause they espouse. All these early tests are justified by one and the same plea—that they serve to reveal the real character of the man who comes before them for reception. So they do. But decent people find it hard to be heroic when they feel themselves thrown suddenly on their backs, and have a revolver pressed to their temples, and, in language of flowing periods that recall the noblest efforts of Burke and John B. Gough, are told they are traitors and spies and deserve to be blown into atoms!

One graceless scamp I knew subjected to this test jumped up unexpectedly and yelled blue murder, then let out his fist with a haste that surprised, and much pained, the apoplectic warden who was exhorting him to confession and repentance, and whose mouth never resumed its natural position after this truly lamentable occurrence. As a rule, though, candidates suffer these things according to their temperaments and the measure of their fortitude, and they receive the joy of their reward at the sight of, and part in the initiation of, their dearest and their best friends.

Personally, I was too old a hand at the entrance to a secret organisation to feel much trepidation when José came to me in that tiny waiting-room in the London quarters of the Order of St. Bruno and told me the decision of the brethren.

“After all,” I reasoned within myself, “in a few moments I shall know the best and worst about these quaintly-garbed people. It is useless to anticipate. So far as I know there is only one rule to guide a man at a moment like this, and that was given me by a man who had money and much leisure coupled with the mania to belong to all the secret societies in existence. He it was who said: ‘Whatever they ask you to do, do it; whatever they ask you to say, say it; whatever they ask you to believe, believe it.’ In one word, reverence is the true keynote to all these initiations, and possessed of this every man may go forward with confidence and good will, certain that by its use he will flatter his fellow-members and save himself a good deal of confusion and shamefacedness.”

Hence I arose immediately I was bidden and, signifying my willingness to proceed, followed the Spaniard down the corridor, which all at once had grown strangely silent and gloomy-looking, for the gas lights had now been lowered to a tiny blue glimmer, and as I moved forward I caught the sound of a low dirge-like chant that might well have passed for an Office of the Dead.

Now music at such a moment is a very curious and powerful agent. Indeed, I don’t know what some secret societies would do without it. Although I had quite made up my mind not to be impressed by this initiation but to keep every nerve and sense on the alert to see if treachery were afoot regarding that Lake of Sacred Treasure, I caught myself again and again giving way to a shiver. Indeed, now and then the sounds would break from a plain chant into a long, low mournful wail of anguish inexpressibly pitiful and sad, summoning at a note, as it were, all the grisly, ghostly spectres of the hearer’s dead and gone memories and making friends walk in imagination that had long since gathered their tired muscles together and stretched their weary limbs out in a last sleep from which no human hand should ever awaken them.

At length, with nerves strung up to a painful tension, I was led into a tiny vault-like cell, and the door suddenly closed upon me. At first, so abrupt was the change, that I could see nothing. But after a time my eyes managed to pierce the gloom, and through the half lights I saw in front of me an old monk seated at a table poring over a huge and musty volume.

For two or three minutes he took no notice of me at all. Then suddenly, when I least expected it, he looked up at me, and his expression was calm, benign, yet dignified.