“Young man, I used to be a sinful fraud,” he said, with a hiccup. “Yes, I confess it; the ways of fraud and evil laid hold upon me and the bond is hard to break. But I have the power, understand? When my vibrations are going good, I can do anything! And some day I’ll quit all the faking and stick to honest work, like I am doing with you.
I GOT away from his maundering, whiskey-sodden confidences. McWhirt was right; he believed in himself. He was a shuteye and no mistake, drinking himself into remorse for his rascality but not abandoning it.
And during these next three days, he really went to town. He did things that positively left me aghast, in the spirit line. Whether they were real or fake, I could not tell; as I said before, only the person concerned would know this. It seemed to me that the harder he drank, the more astonishing became his wizardry; and if he could nearly convince me, it may be imagined how his less skeptical devotees fell for his line.
However, there was one thing that argued against his occult power. He never tumbled to the presence of McWhirt, who was using another name, or to my game, or to the danger that threatened him. And if a master of the occult cannot divine his own peril, then what good is his racket?
During the seance that evening, the professor again described my Uncle John. He went into a frenzy; it seemed the spirit was demanding, not asking. I got up and left the seance abruptly. I really thought that St. Edward was just making a determined play for my cash, and it disgusted me.
McWhirt, during these last three days, was rapidly improving his acquaintance with the professor and flashing a good deal of money. He got manifestations every night which must have cost him heavily, and he played the sucker to perfection; but apparently none of the spirits tipped off the professor, for all was lovely.
On Saturday McWhirt lunched with us at the hotel and we checked every detail of the arrangements for the night’s job.
“You may think I’m a fool, but I’ve got a funny feeling about this,’’ Roesch said gravely, when he and I were alone again. “No question that the professor deserves all that’s coming to him; but I think we’ve mixed into something deeper than we know.”
“Yes, damn it!” I agreed. “Exactly what I feel myself, Doc. A sense of danger, as it were. I’m uneasy. Yet I know it’s all imagination. You keep your eye peeled tonight.”
“Trust me,” he said, and I did.
Knowing to the minute how long my sleeping-potion required to work, I arranged to take it during the preliminary “services” so that it would hit me during the seance following. As evening approached, I grew nervous, which was most unusual for me. With any decent excuse I would have thrown up the job, but we had taken McWhirt’s money and could not back out now.
The hall was partly filled when I drifted in. Up on the platform, McWhirt was talking with the professor. They were both pretty jovial, and it was easy to see that St. Edward had been imbibing heavily; his expansive manner told as much.
Roesch was already here. I took a seat directly behind him, so I could get rid of the bottle after swallowing the drug; if it were found on me, I might be thought a suicide. The “services” began, and St. Edward was in fine fettle, roaring and bellowing his alleged religious patter. Some of his talk was directed at me, and I saw that he seemed to have me on his mind.
I furtively uncorked the little bottle, awaited my chance, and swallowed its contents. The die was cast. No way out of it now. I passed the bottle to Roesch, and relaxed.
It was an unusually large circle that trooped into the back room for the seance that evening. A couple of newspaper men were planted in the crowd, and I knew McWhirt had others waiting outside, with police handy. Everybody held hands, and the usual ceremonies of prayer and singing went ahead. I was seated directly opposite the professor.
The invisible lighting was dim, but objects were perfectly clear. St. Edward went into his trance, and about the same time I felt the drug beginning to take effect. Almost at once, the professor let out a yip and, his eyes bulging at me, began to describe me so exactly that eyes were turned upon me from all directions.
“This man,” he went on, “has a visitor who insists upon delivering a message. It is a message of vital import, a message of life and death—”
That was all I remembered. They say that I just gasped and keeled over.
Now there was the devil to pay. Roesch was ready; shouting that he was a doctor, he took charge of me. At the same moment, the newspaper boys went to work, and in from the outside came others with the police. Flashlight bulbs exploded. Women shrieked; there was a rush to get away, while St. Edward sat humped over in his chair in a daze.
Thanks to McWhirt’s precision and the adroitness of Roesch, who had mapped out every detail, everything went off like clockwork. The police took charge; I was pronounced dead from heart-failure, a police surgeon backing up Roesch in the matter. The professor was hauled off to jail on some trumped-up charge, and McWhirt went along to bail him out—a highly essential part of the scheme.
Since I was a stranger in town and Roesch claimed to be a friend, he was put in charge of the corpse, and the coroner was summoned to hold an inquest immediately. This was done. It was obvious that, startled and perhaps horrified by the words of St. Edward, my heart had given way. Thus, everything was neatly cleared.
A mortician, with whom Roesch had previously made arrangements, was summoned. My body was placed in the coffin he brought, then at the request of Roesch was left here until the morning; a more devoted friend than the doc never lived. He wanted to say some prayers over the corpse before it was moved, he declared.
It went off swimmingly. Everyone skipped out and the doors were shut. Then, just as Roesch was about to administer the injection that would bring me to life again, in walked St. Edward and McWhirt. They had arranged the bail quicker than expected, because there was no question of murder in the case and no real charge to be laid against the professor.
Roesch ducked for cover behind a curtain, and neither of the two men noticed him.
St Edward had a bottle in his pocket, and took a stiff pull at it before looking at the corpse. He was in a tearful, melancholic mood and mighty sorry for himself. McWhirt, said he, was his only friend on God’s green footstool.
“Well, you’ve got plenty of spirit friends,” said McWhirt, and encouraged him to take another swig, which he did. “But right now, you’re in one hell of a bad spot, professor. The morning papers are going to lam you hard. You’re going to need cash, and plenty of it. I hope you’re well heeled?”
“No,” said St. Edward. “Didn’t you supply the five hundred to bail me? I can’t get any money this time of night. I haven’t much in the bank anyhow. I’ll have to raise some on my property. I’ve got plenty of that.”
“You won’t have it long,” McWhirt told him. “This man will have relatives. Sure as fate, they’ll sue you and clap down on everything you own.”
This was probable, and the professor sank down on a chair, wagging his head.
“All my own fault,” he said mournfully. “It’s a punishment brought on me because I misused the power given me! The spirits have done this thing. I had the power, and wasn’t satisfied but went farther and faked results—”
“Never mind mourning about it,” McWhirt said briskly. “I’ll show you how you can get out of this with some cash and save your property to boot, if you’ll trust me.”
He went on to explain, while St. Edward finished off the bottle and listened. He had a couple of thousand cash with him. He would buy, on the spot, all the professor’s property. He had deeds all made out and ready, it seemed, pre-dated a day. Thus, if and when the pinch came, the relatives of this dead man would find nothing to grab.
To the professor, it looked wonderful, a real miracle, and he said so tearfully. To Roesch, who was listening, it was a dead-give-away on McWhirt’s canny scheme. He was getting all the revenge he wanted, and he was also getting some chunks of valuable property for a trifle in cash. Except for the liquor a
nd his remorse, St. Edward would never have agreed to such a thing, naturally; but now remorse had him by the throat, stifling his reason.
“I’ll do it,” he sobbed out, wringing his hands. “You’re my only friend. I’ll sign anything, anything!”
And he did it. But McWhirt was not finished.
“Did you ever know a woman by the name of McWhirt, in Chicago?” he asked.
St. Edward looked up, wildly. “Eh? Yes, yes. Where did you hear of her?”
“Why, tonight! When you were in your trance, she spoke. She said she was an old client of yours, and you had tricked her and caused her death—”
THE professor nearly went out of his head at this, talking about the spirits and his lost power, and so forth. McWhirt stuck in his barb more deeply.
“If you’ve got the power,” said he, “why don’t you bring this dead man to life?”
“I could do it in a minute,” mourned the professor, staring at the corpse and the coffin. “I could do it, sure; but now the spirits have turned against me. It’s a punishment for what I’ve done—”
“Well, try it and see,” said McWhirt, getting out one of his trick mirrors. “The man’s dead—this mirror will prove it. You call on the spirits; if you’ve really got any power or if you ever had any, you can put breath in his body.”
St. Edward groaned, but rose and stood over the coffin. McWhirt tried the trick side of the mirror, showing that I was really dead, as the glass remained blank.
The professor went into his act, and really meant what he said according to Roesch. He was groaning and heaving and sobbing out his remorse, praying to the spirits to give him one more chance; it must have been a ghastly and sickening performance. Presently McWhirt held the real side of the mirror to my nostrils.
“Look!” he cried.
In his excitement, the professor nearly shook me out of the coffin. Sure enough, the glass showed that I was breathing!
“You’ve brought him to life!” exclaimed McWhirt, straightening up. “But maybe the spirits only wanted to show what you might have done—here, try it again. You try it.”
St. Edward took the mirror, as McWhirt put it into his hand, and held it before my nostrils. A deep groan burst from him; there was no breath on the glass.
“Dead, dead!” he cried, and dropped the mirror. “A judgment on me, sure enough!”
“I guess so,” agreed McWhirt. “If you had never done any trickery, this wouldn’t have happened. If you hadn’t caused the death of that woman, in Chicago—”
“Oh, my lord!” groaned the professor. “You’re right, you’re right! To think how I’ve misused my powers, and what I might have done—”
They went away together.
Doc Roesch, who had heard every word, slipped in beside me with his hypodermic ready. He gave me the injection that would fetch me around, and waited for it to work. When I came to myself, he pressed my arm hard.
“Easy, now! Stay right where you are. Everything all right?”
“Sure,” I rejoined. It was exactly like waking from slumber, for me.
“Then don’t move,” he said. “I’ve arranged with the mortician that I’ll close the coffin here; he won’t object or investigate. But I’ll have to get the weights that will replace your body, so lie still. If anyone shows up, play possum. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Our grips have already gone to the station.”
“Okay,” I said, and he went out of the place.
I closed my eyes drowsily and relaxed. Something flicked across my face; opening my eyes, I looked up and saw a man standing beside me.
It was my Uncle John.
Say, if you like, that it was some hallucination resulting from the drugs; yet such a thing had never happened before. I woke clear-headed and alert. My mind was clear as a bell at this instant. He was there, scowling down at me, dressed as he had been in life.
“Art, you’re a fool,” he said.
I lay speechless; a chill panic had seized me. I could not move a muscle.
“I’ve been trying night after night to reach and warn you,” he went on slowly. I knew him, I knew his voice. I could hear the ticking of the big clock on the wall. “You refused to accept the message. Tonight your medium had a strong control. He has given me strength to appear to you. Art, do you realize the power of thought?”
I mumbled something, I know not what.
“A thought, a word, is creation,” he went on. “Keep any thought before you strongly enough and it becomes reality. Every thought or word is an energy for good or bad. Speech clothes thoughts, and speech creates thought in others. There is no chance; there are no accidents to human beings. What you do today has to do with what you did yesterday. Even the suicide is not aberrate; he is fulfilling in one blinding instant the destined accumulation of countless years of accretion. So with you, in thought, word and deed. You have been playing with dreadful forces, building up for yourself a karma that now threatens you.”
“Karma?” I repeated blankly.
“Karma is a force, exerted by anyone who does any action; it may be good or bad. It is a result, not a cause. Thus far you have committed no great wrongs, but this is the end. If you once more repeat this trick, let me warn you solemnly that you will not waken from your imitation death; it will be real.”
“Are you real?” I blurted out, staring at him. He smiled.
“As real as your cousin, who spoke to you the other night. As real as the sunlight, as the soul itself, as the terrific peril which menaces you; as real as the Ancient Law which binds us all! Ask your friend the name of the woman who spoke with him last night, the woman who wore a cluster of golden flowers at her throat and a rose in her hair; ask him what she said to him, and tell him she was as real as I am. That is all.”
Shivering, I closed my eyes and lay immobile. When I looked up again, the room was empty. Roesch came in a moment later.
I tried to tell myself it was nerves. Roesch had occupied our double room at the hotel each night; there had been no woman at all. When he helped me out of the coffin I went to the nearest chair and collapsed on it, waiting until he stuffed the flour-sacks into place and was screwing down the coffin lid.
“Roesch, tell me something,” I said. He looked up and grinned.
“Everything’s okay, Bronson. You’re taking the two-thirty train; wait for me at Centerville. I’ll be along tomorrow with the coffin, for burial there.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Do you know of any woman wearing a cluster of golden flowers at her throat, and a rose in her hair?”
Doc Roesch is about as hard-boiled as the average physician, but as he straightened up and looked at me, he went white as death.
“Good God!” he breathed. “How do you know that? I dreamed of her last night. I dreamed that she was warning me to get out of this business and never do it again.”
“Who was she?” I muttered.
“My mother. She always wore that old brooch at her throat—she loved flowers—”
Laugh if you like; call me a fool if you like; explain it if you can! But, when Roesch had put me aboard the two-thirty train for Centerville, we had made a solemn compact. Our partnership was ended. This stunt would never again be pulled off.
Centerville was only fifty miles north. I got there, secured hotel rooms, and tumbled into bed. The drug dosage always made me feel drowsy and bad for a day or so, and I did not waken until late afternoon.
Then I got a morning paper and looked it over. But I did not read the story of my own death, at once; something else caught and held my attention—a boxed, flash item on the front page. “Mystic Kills Self,” it was headed. And then I remembered what McWhirt had told us about the inevitable suicide of a shuteye medium . . . and I knew with what savage cunning he had played for his revenge to the uttermost.
For, last night, St. Edward had gone home and put a bullet through his brain. That was his end. And it was the end of my career as a professional corpse, also.
Also by H. Bedford-Jones
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The Cross and the Hammer
The Conquest
Drums of Dambala
Adventures of a Professional Corpse Page 8