The Ship of Shadows. H. Bedford-Jones

      1. Dr. Venable Has a Caller

      CHAPTER I

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      Dr. Venable Has a Caller

      WERE this to be the tale, simply, of how Eric Venable fell and rose again from the depths, much might be said of his voyage to Tientsin River. It would bear much dwelling upon; it would in itself make, from the Horatio-Algerian view point, an excellent moral tale. But it would delete all about Shinski and Marie, and the Shirvan diamond, and the burlap-wrapped parcel; it would have to touch upon Mrs. Ivanoff’s pistol with discretion; and of course it could say little about the poet Gerin’s company of shadows, or the devil Boris Kryalpin, or the ending of the Kum Chao. And these things, from a worldly and unmoral viewpoint, make up a glorious tale—a sordid and tragic and human tale, if you will, but a stirring and glorious one withal!

      It is hard to speak of the downfall of a learned and respected man of God; doubly hard to speak of the piteous snare of drugs which had trapped Eric Venable. None the less, with his downfall began that tale of the Kum Chao and Garrity the magnificent—although such things were far from the mind of Venable as he sat in his gray house and waited for the hand of Fate to guide Mrs. Ivanoff to his doorstep.

      Death stalked that gaunt gray house; it was no secret in the town. Everyone knew it now. Death, and stark tragedy, and utter ruination, gibbered on the shoulders of the man who sat in that house and faced his damnation with steely fortitude. In his darkened study sat Eric Venable and looked himself squarely in the eye. He scarcely recognized his face in the mirror. What was it the doctor had said—the doctor who had been his friend?

      “You fool! You fool! I gave you that prescription temporarily—to help you to sleep and relax during that week your wife died. You kept on getting it filled, forging my name, for months. Heaven help you, Venable! I can’t. I give up—I’ve fought with you to the end. Heaven help you!”

      In those last three words was grim and tragic irony, perhaps unintended. For the gaunt gray house was St. Brendan’s rectory, and Eric Venable was a servant of the Lord. A doctor of divinity, a doctor of philosophy, a man deeply learned and wisely read, Venable now faced the absolute destruction of his past life. He had come to ruin. The drug had cost him his parish, the respect of his people, the welfare of his soul—everything!

      While filled with charity for the errant humans who sought his help, Eric Venable had ever been a savagely intolerant man in regard to things of his faith. To him there had been one denomination and one only; its tenets he had preached and followed narrowly, rigidly. Himself a man of iron, he had refused all compromise in theology. He was a fighter, a great battler in this arena. It gave him outlet for his furious energy. And now—was Heaven helping him or damning him?

      He laughed savagely into the mirror. What was it the parish leaders had said?

      “A younger man, Doctor!” They had evaded, but they had in a way spoken truth. “The parish needs a younger man. We have considered an assistant for you—”

      Venable had given them his resignation on the spot. It was accepted.

      Now he looked again in the mirror and scarce knew himself. The beetling, iron-cast features were gaunt, thinned down to skin and bone. Venable lowered his face in his hands, shrinking from the sight of himself as he was.

      Somehow the dread secret had leaked out, reaching even to the higher councils of the church. And what had they said, those who sat so high? Venable thought of the letter, and groaned to himself. Vague but firmly impressed hints, eating into his soul like acid! He was suddenly shaken loose from all his foundations; he was rejected of men.

      An acrid reek of smoke brought its unlovely odor to his nostrils. Out there in the yard lay in glowering ruin all the most sacred things of his past life—pictures, books, little loved things of the home. His home was gone, and on the morrow everything would be sold; but some things he had to burn.

      His once rugged body was a whited sepulchre, a shaking wreck. Nobody wanted him—least of all the army. A year previously he had refused a chaplaincy, and now he could not have one for the begging. His church! Well, he would never be unfrocked, of course; but he could be delicately discouraged. Venable thought of the letters he had written, and the letters he had received; once again he laughed savagely, indomitably.

      “You had it right, Tom Hood!” he muttered. “ ‘Alas, for the rarity of Christian charity!’ I’ve always denied that quotation, denied it vehemently, smashed it down with theological sophistry. But now—where is there a place to receive me? I’m fit for nothing. I’m conquered. I’ve nothing ahead but an empty future of degradation. I can’t let go of the cursed thing that has overcome me. I’ve no future.”

      He started suddenly. Through the empty house of death thrilled the peal of the doorbell, the bell which now so seldom answered the touch of those who had once come there in friendship and love and respect. Who was coming here?

      “More misery, I suppose,” reflected Venable, starting up. “More humiliation and shame to be heaped on my head! Very well. I deserve the worst that can come.”

      He squared his massive shoulders, threw back his iron-gray head, went to the door.