The Secrets of Dr. Taverner Read Online Free PDF Page B

then he got his focus and steadied to his work.
     
    "Il cinquecento, Firenze, Italia, Pierro della Costa."4
     
    came a deep level voice; then followed a long-drawn out vibrating sound halfway between a telephone bell and the note of a `cello, and the voice changed.
     
    "Two forty-five, November the fourteenth, 1898, London, England."
     
    For a time there was silence, but almost immediately Taverner's voice cut across it.
     
    "I want Pierro della Costa, who was reborn November the fourteenth, 1898, at two forty-five a.m."
     
    Silence. And then Taverner's voice again calling as if over a telephone: "Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!" Apparently he received an answer, for his tone changed. "Yes; it is the Senior of Seven who is speaking."
     
    Then his voice took on an extraordinary majesty and command.
     
    "Brother, where is the ritual that was entrusted to thy care?"
     
    What answer was given I could not divine; but after a pause Taverner's voice came again. "Brother, redeem thy crime and return the ritual whence it was taken." Then he rolled over on to his side, and the trance condition passed into natural sleep, and so to an awakening.
     
    Dazed and shivering, he recovered consciousness, and I gave him hot coffee from a Thermos flask, such as we always kept handy for these midnight meals. I recounted to him what had passed, and he nodded his satisfaction between sips of the steaming liquid.
     
    "The fifteenth century, Florence, Italy, Peter della Costa."
     
    "I wonder how Pierro della Costa will effect his task," he said. "The present day personality will probably not have the faintest idea as to what is required of it, and will be blindly urged forward by the subconscious."
     
    "How will it locate the manuscript?" I inquired. "Why should he succeed where you failed?"
     
    "I failed because I could not at any point establish contact with the manuscript. I was not on earth at the time it was stolen, and I could not trace it in the racial memories for the same reason. One must have a jumping-off place, you know. Occult work is not performed by merely waving a wand."
     
    "How will the present day Pierro go to work?" I inquired. "The present day Pierro won't do anything," said Taverner, "because he does not know how, but his subconscious mind is that of the trained occultist, and under the stimulus I have given it, will perform its work; it will probably go back to the time when the manuscript was handed over to the Medici, and then trace its subsequent history by means of the racial memories--the subconscious memory of Nature."
     
    "And how will he go to work to recover it?"
     
    "As soon as the subconscious has located its quarry, it will send an impulse through into the conscious mind, bidding it take the body upon the quest, and a very puzzled modern young man may find himself in a difficult situation."
     
    "How will he know what to do with the manuscript when he has found it?"
     
    "Once an Initiate, always an Initiate. In all moments of difficulty and danger the Initiate turns to his Master. Something in that boy's soul will reach out to make contact, and he will be brought back to his own Fraternity. Sooner or later he will come across one of the Brethren, who will know what to do with him."
     
    I was thankful enough to lie down on the sofa and get a couple of hours' sleep, until such time as the charwoman should disturb me; but Taverner, upon whom "going subconscious"
     
    always seemed to have the effect of a tonic, announced his intention of seeing the sun rise from London Bridge, and left me to my own devices.
     
    He returned in time to take me out to breakfast, and I discovered that he had given instructions for every morning paper and each successive edition of the evening ones to be sent in to us. All day long the stream of printed matter poured in, and had to be gone over, for Taverner was on the lookout for Pierro della Costa's effort to recover the ritual.
     
    "His first attempt upon it is certain to be some