So I know who your niece is now, Mr. Baxter. The Jews called her Eve and Delilah; the Greeks, Helen of Troy; the Romans, Cleopatra; the Christians, Salome. She is the White Daemon who destroys the honour and manhood of the noblest and most virile men in every age. She came to me in the guise of Bella Baxter. To King Louis she was Madame de Maintenon, to Prince Charlie she was Clementina Walkinshaw, to Robert Burns she was Jean Armour et cetera and to General Blessington she was Victoria Hattersley. Does that name make you tremble, Lucifer Baxter? The General’s matrimonial disaster was not noised aloud by the newspapers, but we lawyers have other sources of knowledge, and through these I have penetrated your secret. FOR THE WHITE DAEMON IS IN EVERY AGE AND NATION THE PUPPET AND TOOL OF A VASTER, DARKER DAEMON!!!!! Eve was ruled by the Serpent, Delilah by the Philistine Elders, Madame de Maintenon by Cardinal Thingummy and Bella Baxter by YOU, Godwin Bysshe Baxter, Arch-Fiend and Manipulator of this Age of Material Science! Only in Modern Glasgow — the BABYLON of Material Science — could you have gained wealth, power and respect by carving up human brains, prowling through morgues and haunting the death-beds of the poor. You would have been burned as a warlock for that when Scotland was a Spiritual Nation, GOD-SWINE BOSH BACK-STAIR, BEAST OF THE BOTTOMLESS PIT!!!!!
You probably do not know you are Antichrist, for none are as deluded as the damned, so the Father of All Lies is condemned to know himself least of all. But you are a scientist. Examine the proofs I will now present coldly and logically, without using a lot of capital letters, except at the start.
THE COMING OF THE BEAST
BIBLE PROPHECIES
MODERN FACTS
1 The number of the Beast is 666.
You live at 18 Park Circus, which number is the sum of 6+6+6.
2 The Beast supports a Woman clothed in scarlet.
Bella is very fond of red.
3 The Beast is called Babylon, because that city ruled the biggest material empire in the ancient world, and persecuted the children of God, the spiritual people of that day. (Note that Protestant fanatics say Rome is the modern Babylon and the headquarters of the Beast, but remember that Roman Catholicism — with all its flaws — is nowadays a wholly spiritual empire.)
The British Empire is the largest Empire the world has ever known. It is wholly material, being based on industry, trade and military might. It was invented in Glasgow. Here James Watt conceived the steam engines which drive the British rail trains and merchant fleets and battle fleets, and here the best of these locomotives and ships are built. Here Adam Smith invented modern capitalism. Here Sir William Thomson devises the telegraph cables binding the empire together over the ocean floors, also the diesel electric engines of the future.
4 The Beast (and the Woman he supports) are also called Mystery.
Chemistry, electricity, anatomy et cetera are Mysteries to nearly everybody— except you!
5 The Beast is worshipped by all the kings of this earth.
Though Queen Victoria prefers Edinburgh to Glasgow, Balmoral to the rest of Scotland, the Grand Duke Alexis, son of the Tsar of Russia, called Glasgow “The centre of intelligence of England” in his speech at the launching of the Livadia last year, built for his father at Elder’s shipyard.
6 The Beast has seven heads — seven bits sticking up. (Protestant fanatics say it must therefore be Roman because Rome is notoriously built upon seven hills.)
But Glasgow is built on seven hills! Golf Hill, Balmano Brae, Blythswood Hill, Garnet Hill, Partick Hill, Gilmore Hill crowned by the University, Woodlands Hill crowned by Park Circus where you sacrificed me to the Scarlet Whore of Modern Babylon!
7 The Scarlet Woman on the Beast’s back holds a golden cup full of abominations.
I do not exactly know what the cup is nowadays because Bella disliked wine and spirits, but if you and I meet and discuss the matter calmly surely we will find something?
I am horribly lonely. Mother keeps telling me to pull myself together. I long to sit close to her but when I do she fidgets and asks why I do not go out to music-hall, sports-club or other “THINGS” I used to be busy with before my trip abroad. I dread such “THINGS” nowadays. When I was little Auld Jessy cared for me when Mother got the fidgets. So now I pretend to go out for a “night on the town” but skulk round by the backdoor tradesman’s entrance into the kitchen, where I sit tippling with Auld Jessy and the cook. I never drank alcohol in my Casanova days, for a devotee of Venus must abjure Bacchus. It is cold in the kitchen. I have so wasted the Wedderburn fortune that Mother cannot afford to let servants use our coals. Auld Jessy and the cook sleep together for warmth, so I sleep between them. I cannot sleep alone. Come back please warm me Bella.
Tomorrow I will start a new life by doing three things all at once. I will make Mother rich again by underrating devotion to the science and art of property conveyancing. I will save my Bella from Beastly Baxter by boxing with the Modern Babylon at street corners, in the open forum of Glasgow Green and through letters to the press. I will embrace the only true Catholic faith, make a vow of eternal chastity, and end my days in the peace of a cloister. I need rest. Help me.
I am Faithfully and Forever,
Bella’s Outcast Welter Weight
Bleeding Waistcoat Hearted
Duncan McNab Wed Wed Wedder
(Writer to the Signet and Auld Jessy’s Big Tumshie).
13. Intermission
We were silent for a while after Baxter stopped reading. At last I said, “Can we do nothing to save that poor fellow’s sanity?”
“Nothing,” said Baxter crisply. He had put the sheaf of pages back in an envelope and from a brown paper packet drew out a bulkier sheaf. Holding it carefully on his knees he smiled down at it, gently caressing the topmost page with the tiny delicate tips of his conical thumbs.