Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1924 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

168 Dual regarded him through a moment of silence before he answered. “No one is innocent, Mr. Bryce, save as through error, which mankind denominates sin, he attains to innocence. And may not a man’s en- vironment, his associations, bring him con- Sciously or unconsciously within a mesh of circumstance?” ‘ Circumstance.” Bryce nodded. ‘ That is it, eh? Haddon said he had evidence enough to convict. Then just why are we goin’ out there?” “To help,” Dual said. ‘To help Had- don, my friends, combat one of the greatest evils which at present threatens the hu- man race—this trade in drugs, wherein men, forgetting all higher motives, batten like unclean vultures on the weakness of their fellows, enrich themselves with un- clean gold—whereby not only the creatures of the underworld, men and women of fash- ion, but boys and girls, progenitors of an unborn generation, are equally enslaved, are being destroyed not only in mind and body, but in their.very souls.” His voice lifted a trifle, rang almost clarionlike toward the end, and Bryce nod- ded again as he paused. “ Well, yes,” he agreed and rolled his black cigar across his mouth. “I guess that’s right. The dope trade is rotten enough to justify any one’s interferin’, God knows. I saw enough of it when I was a cop, and I understand it’s gettin’ worse. But if you don’t mind my askin’, how do you arrive at the conclu- sion that Haddon needs help, from the two names he sent you?” Dual turned to the desk on which lay a number of symbol-marked squares of pa- per—things I had observed when we first came in—the fruits, I knew, of his recent work; things which might, as I knew, also be regarded as the astral charts of a man’s and a woman’s lives. Selecting two from the number, he turned back, holding them in his hand. ‘“‘'Your question brings us to the specific instance, Mr. Bryce. I have likened life to a twisted strand, and Shakespeare, a man who had a surprising insight into its lights and shadows, has likened it to a stage. Life to him was a drama. And in every drama there are principal actors and supporting ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, cast. In so far as I care as yet to haz- ard an opinion, Phillip Newton and Ber- nice Rand occupy a subsidiary position in the matter with which Haddon at present is engaged. “As to how I arrive at this deduction, in each of these figures which I have erected since you brought the necessary data to me, there is a similar malefic, affecting the in- dividual whom the specific chart concerns. A malefic is what in other terms one might call an evil influence. In this oase, it is of a Neptunian nature, and since the woman’s Venus is near the same degree of zodiacal longitude as the man’s sun, we find Nep- tune afflicting Phillip Newton’s sun, and the Venus of Bernice Rand.” ‘““ Neptune?” Bryce began with a force I did not at the time comprehend, and bit himself off on the word. “ Neptune,” Dual repeated. “ A peculiar planet, which turns from east to west on its axis unlike ours, the influence of which is more frequently evil. In connection with the present matter, it seems of added in- terest that Neptune is the ruler of subtle essences, perfumes, and narcotic drugs.” “Eh?” Bryce removed his cigar slowly. I saw the hand that held it contract until the roll of fuming tobacco broke. I couldn’t blame him. It was almost uncanny to sit there in the room in the tower, shut off, as it were, from the every day world of man, and hear the calm voice of Dual, in his white and purple robe, enunciate such statements, which, from their very manner of stating, one felt convinced he held un- assailable facts. Then, as the cigar crum- bled in his fingers, Jim caught himself up. ‘“* Dope?”’ he muttered. ‘““ Dope,” Semi-Dual responded. ‘‘ Hence such a malefic posited so as to exert a similar evil influence upon both man and woman, might well bring them into a simi- lar situation at this time.”’ ‘“‘Haddon’s hands, for instance,” Bryce rallied enough to suggest. ‘‘Specifically as it appears.” Dual inclined his head again. ‘“ I may add that Neptune is, aS it were, the octave expression of Venus—the planet which it afflicts in the consideration of Miss Rand. Haddon’s third arrest appears to be closely associated COMmiclboe (”) SS