by Will Irwin
VIII
THE FISH NIBBLES
Quietly, naturally, giving a preliminary word of direction to the maidas she lifted the portieres, Mrs. Markham entered the drawing room.Pricking with a sense of impatience, tinctured by nervousness over hisown folly, Robert H. Norcross awaited her there. She stood a momentregarding him; in that moment, the quick perception, veiled away by anexpression of thought, to which the railroad baron owed so much, tookher all in. Superficially, he saw a tall woman, approaching fifty, butstill vigorous and free from over-burdening flesh.
"Good evening; I am glad to see you," she said quietly. She had a lowvoice and pleasing. He remembered then that he had failed to rise, sointent had he been on her face; and he got to his feet in someembarrassment. As she approached him, his mind, going from detail todetail, noticed her powerful head, her Grecian nose, rising withoutindentation from a straight forehead, her firm but pleasant mouth, herlarge, light gray eyes which looked a little past him. Here was aperson on his own level of daring mental flight. He remembered only oneother woman who had struck him with the force of this one. That otherwas an actress, supreme in her generation not so much for temperamentas for mind. As he looked over a reception crowd at her, intellect hadspoken to intellect; they had known each other. So Paula Markham struckhim on first sight.
He was about to speak, but she put in her word first.
"Do you come personally or professionally? I had an engagement for anunknown visitor on professional business. Are you he? For if you are,it would be better for you not to tell me your name--I am Mrs.Markham."
"I came professionally," he said. He paused. The manner of Norcross, onall first meetings, was timid and hesitating. It was one of hisunconscious tricks. Because of that timidity, new-comers, in trying toput him at his ease revealed themselves to his shrewd observation. Butthere was a real embarrassment at this meeting. He was approaching thesubject which had lain close to his imagination ever since three daysago, when Bulger said carelessly that a woman had given him the addressof the best spook medium in the business.
"I want to know," he said, "all about--myself."
She laughed lightly as she seated herself in an old-fashionedstraight-back chair.
"If I should tell you that," she said, "I would give you the sum andsubstance of human wisdom. That seems to me the greatest mystery of theunknowable. No human being ever thoroughly understood any other humanbeing, I suppose,--and yet no human being knows himself. If you searchyourself, you find mystery. If you ask others, you find double mystery.Perhaps that is the knowledge which is reserved for the Divine."
"That is true," responded Norcross. "That is true. But your spirits--"
"Not mine," she interrupted. "And perhaps not spirits, either. Thoughthey speak to me, I cannot say that they are real, any more than I cantell that this table, these clothes"--her long, expressive, ringlesshand swept across the area of her skirt--"than you yourself, are real.All reality and unreality may dwell in the mind. Though personally,"she added, "I prefer to believe that this chair, these clothes, you, I,are real. And if they are real, so are the Voices. At least, so Ibelieve."
This philosophy was past any power of Norcross for repartee; thefaculties which deal with such things had wasted in him during thirtyyears in Wall Street. But the effect of her voice, her ladyhood, andher command of this philosophy--those moved him.
"Will your voices tell me anything?" he asked, irrelevantly, yet comingstraight to the point.
"Impatience," she answered, "will not help you. The power bloweth whereit listeth. That impatience is one of the roads to trickery employed bythe frauds of--my profession."
A smile lifted the mustache of Norcross.
"You admit that there _are_ frauds in your profession, then?"
"Oh, dear, yes!" she smiled back at him. "It lends itself so easily tofraud that the temptation among the little people must beoverwhelming--the more because trickery is often more accurate thanreal revelation. I will confess to you that this is the rock upon whichmy powers and my mission seem sometimes most likely to split. But Iconsole myself by thinking that all of us, great as well as small, mustbe on the verge of it sometimes. Let me draw you a parallel. Perhapsyou know something of the old alchemists. They had laid hold on theedge of chemistry. But because that truth came confused, because theyall had things by the wrong handle, a thousand of them confused truthwith error until, in the end, they did not know right from wrong. Thisforce in which you and I are interested is a little like chemistry--itmay be called mental and spiritual chemistry. But because it deals withthe unseen, not with the seen, it is a thousand times more uncertainand baffling. We have ears, eyes, touch--a great equipment--to perceivegold, silver, stones, trees, water. But we have only this mind, amystery even to ourselves, to perceive an idea, a concept. I wish thatI could express it better"--she broke off suddenly--"and very likelyI'm boring you--but when your whole soul is full of a thing it _will_overflow." She smiled upon Norcross, as though for sympathy. If he gaveit, his face did not betray him.
"Then you say," returned Norcross with one of his characteristic shiftsto childlike abruptness, "that you never faked?"
Mrs. Markham, as though daring him to provoke her by hisforthrightness, leaned forward and regarded him with amusement on herlips. "Men are only boys," she said. "My dear sir--I could almost say'my dear boy'--if I had, would I admit it? You must take me as I am andform your own conclusions. I shall not help you with that, even thoughI admit to you that I don't care very much what your conclusions are.
"To be serious," she added, "it is not a pleasant suspicion to hear ofone's self. Now take yourself--you are a man of large practicalaffairs--"
Norcross leaned forward a trifle, as though expecting revelation tobegin. She caught the motion.
"Don't think I'm telling you _that_ from any supernormal source," shesaid. "That's my own intelligence--my woman's intuition if you like tocall it so. Your air, your ineptness to understand philosophy, showthat you are not in one of the learned professions, and it is easy tosee, if I may make so bold"--here she smiled a trifle--"that you are noordinary person. You have the air of great things about you. Well, if Ishould raise suspicion against your business integrity and yourmethods, it would hurt for a moment, even if there were truth in it. Infairness, that is so, is it not?"
"I have to beg your pardon, of course," said Norcross, grown easier inhis manner. "But you must remember that your profession has to proveitself--that they're all accused of fraud."
"Now that you have apologized," said she, "I will prove that I haveaccepted the apology by answering you direct. I am not a fraud. I havebeen able to afford not to be. Still, I have a little sympathy withthose who are. Did you ever consider," she went on, "that no fraudinvents anything; that he is only imitating something genuine? Perhapsit may shake whatever faith you have in me if I tell you whatever thesepeople profess to do has been done genuinely and without possibility offraud."
"Even bringing spirits from a cabinet?" he asked. Just as he spoke thatquestion, an electric bell rang somewhere to the rear of thedrawing-room. Mrs. Markham sat unmoving for an instant, as thoughconsidering either the sound or his question. The bell tinkled no more.After a moment, she smiled again.
"You must know more of all these things before I can answer yourquestion. Haven't we talked enough? Wouldn't it be better, in yourpresent condition of suspicion, if I try to see what we can do withoutseeming any further to inspect you? For you must know that longpreliminary conversation is a stock method with frauds and fakirs."
Norcross's breath came a little faster, and a curious change passed fora second over his face--a falling of all the masses and lines. Mrs.Markham rose, sat by the table, under the reading-lamp, and shaded hereyes with her hand. She spoke now in a different tone, softer and lessinflected.
NORCROSS'S BREATH CAME A LITTLE FASTER]
"I shall probably not go into trance," she said. "That is rare with me,rare with anyone, though often assumed for effect. Of you,
I ask onlythat you remain quiet and passive. I'd like less light."
Norcross shot a glance of quick suspicion at her as he rose, reachedfor the old-fashioned gas chandelier, and turned the jets down to tinypoints.
"Oh, dear no!" spoke Mrs. Markham, "not so low as that--this is no darkseance. I merely meant that the lights are too strong for a pair ofsensitive eyes. I feel everything when I am in this condition. Wouldyou mind sitting a little further away? Thank you. I think that'sright. Please do not speak to me until I speak, and do not bedisappointed if I tell you nothing."
For five minutes, no sound broke the silence in Mrs. Markham'sdrawing-room, except the hiss of a light, quick breath and the intakeand outgo of a heavier, slower one. And so suddenly, with suchsmothered intensity, that Norcross started in his seat, Mrs. Markham'svoice emitted the first quaver of a musical note. She held it for amoment, before she began to hum over and over three bars of an oldtune--"Wild roamed an Indian maid, bright Alfaretta." Thrice she hummedit, still sitting with her hand over her eyes.--"Wild roamed an Indianmaid--" Then silence. But now, the breath of Norcross was coming moreheavily, and the masses of his face had still further fallen. After aninterval, Mrs. Markham spoke, in a low, even tone:
"It is Lallie."
Another period of heavy silence.
"I cannot see her nor hear her speak. Martha, my control, is speakingfor her. But Martha shows me the picture of a child--a little girl inan old-fashioned dress. And I think she is saying that name--Lallie."
The silence again, so that when Norcross moistened his dry lips withhis tongue the slight smack seemed like the crackle of a fire.
"I see it more clearly now and I understand. The child gave her thatname, but someone else used it for a love name. It was just betweenthose two." The rest came in scattered sentences, with long pausesbetween--"I hear that song again--it was her favorite--I understand nowwhy it comes--she was singing it when--Yes, you are the man--when youtold her--She calls you Bobbert--and now I cannot see."
A bead of perspiration had appeared so suddenly on the forehead ofNorcross that it had the effect of bursting from a pore. He was on hisfeet, was pacing the floor in his jerky little walk. When, after onecourse of the drawing-room, he turned back, Mrs. Markham had taken herhand from her eyes, and was facing him.
"Oh, why did you do that?" she asked. "It has its effect on me--you donot know how much!" Her manner spoke a smothered irritation. "I shallnot see Lallie to-night. And she was very near."
As though something had clicked and fallen into place within him,Norcross straightened and stiffened, controlled the relaxed muscles ofhis face, flashed his eyes on Mrs. Markham.
"Might I ask some questions?" he said.
"You must sit quietly," she answered, "and though I can never see sowell after the first contact breaks, Martha may speak for you. Sit asyou did, and wait for me." Norcross walked at his nervous, hurriedlittle pace back to his seat on the sofa. His face was quite controllednow, and his sharp eyes held all their native cunning. That grip onhimself grew, as he waited for the inert seeress to speak again.
"Martha says, 'I will try,'" she gave out finally. "Quick--with yourquestion--with your lips, not your mind--I am not strong enough now."
"What was Lallie's real name?"
"Helen."
"Her other name?"
A pause, then:
"Martha is silent. You are testing me. Tell something you want toknow--even advice."
"Was there ever anyone else?"
A pause again, then:
"Never. She loved you wholly. She was angry over a little thing, justjealousy, during that last quarrel. She had already forgiven. It wasonly a girl's whim. Do you want advice?"
Norcross thrusted obliquely from the corner of his eye at Mrs. Markhamand looked down at the floor.
"Ask her if I shall sell," he said.
The answer came so suddenly that it overlapped the last words of hissentence.
"Martha says that she is going away." No more for two silent minutes;no more until Mrs. Markham dropped her hand from her eyes, turned toNorcross, and said in a normal, sprightly tone:
"It is all over for this evening. I suppose the trouble lay in yourlast question. I am sorry--if you came here looking for businessadvice--that you got only the things of the affections. To your oldlove affairs, I had an unusually quick response to-night." She leanedheavily back in her chair. "Excuse me if I seem tired. There is a kindof inner strain about this which you cannot know--a strain at the core.It does not affect the surface, but it makes you languid." Yet hermanner, as she threw herself back, invited him to linger.
"I shall not ask you," she went on, "whether the things I told youto-night are true. We all have our human vanities in our work; we liketo hear it praised. That is one reason why I do not ask. Then I knowwithout your confirmation that what I told you was true. When thecontrol comes as clearly and strongly as it did for a few minutestonight,--before you interrupted by rising--the revelations are alwaysaccurate and true. The details I gave you are trivial. That isgenerally a feature of a first sitting. The scholars have found anexplanation of that phenomenon, and I am inclined to agree with them.If I were talking to you over a telephone and you were not sure of myvoice, how should I identify myself? By some trivial incident of ourcommon experience. For example, suppose I were to call you upto-morrow. How should I identify myself? Somewhat like this, probably:'You tried to turn the gas out completely, when I wanted it onlylowered in order to save my eyes.' Wouldn't that identify me to you?"she paused as for an answer.
"As nearly as you could over a telephone wire," he answered. "You're amarvelously clever woman, to think of that," he added. Mrs. Markhamanswered, on the wings of a light laugh:
"If I appear at all clever by contrast with what you expected to find,it is because I have not let my mind dwell in a half-world, as have somany others of my profession. That is the tendency. I have seen noreason why I should not combat it. I believe, too, that I am thestronger for it in my work. What was I saying? Oh, yes--about the firstcontact. Probably the last thought of the disembodied, upon assumingthe trance state--for I believe that the sender of these messages, likethe receivers, have to enter an abnormal condition--is to prove theiridentity. That is only natural, is it not? Would not you do the same?Think. And what do they have to offer? One of those intimate memoriesof years past which linger so long in the mind. Take me for example.What should I offer to--well, to that one among the disembodied whomeans most to me? An adventure in stealing cream from a dairy house!"As though she were carried away by this memory, her face grew soft andserious. With an outward sweep of her hands and a quick "but then!" sheresumed:
"The best judges of character--and you must be such a one--make theirmistakes. Why did you ask that question?"
Norcross, glib and effective as his tongue could be when he directed ortraded, found now no better answer than:
"Because I wanted to know, I suppose."
"Were this Helen in the flesh--young and inexperienced as shewas--would you expect her to give you advice in any large affair ofbusiness--would she be basically interested in it? Interested becauseit is yours and she loves you, perhaps--but basically? We have no proofthat natures change out there. I suppose that isn't all, either. Isshe, keeping her soul for you in a life which I hope is better--is sheinterested in whether or no you make a little more money and position?I can conceive only one condition in which she would mention yourbusiness. If you were at a crossroads--if great danger or greatdeliverance hung on your decision--she might sense that. I think theymust get it, by some process to which we are blind, from otherdisembodied spirits."
"Suppose, then, that--Martha I think you call her--had brought some oldbusiness associate. Would he have answered me?"
"Perhaps. But that does not really explain what is in your mind. Ifthis business matter which perplexes you were so vital, don't yousuppose that some one of those very associates would have rushed tospeak, instead of a dead love? In that way, I think I
can construct ananswer--provided you ask that question in good faith. It is, probably,not very important whether you sell or no."
Mrs. Markham rose on this. Norcross caught the hint in her manner, androse with her. A little "oh!" escaped her, and her face lighted.
"I know who you are, now!" she said. "You are Robert H. Norcross of theNorcross lines!"
Norcross started.
"Please do not think I got _that_ by any supernormal means!" she addedquickly. "I mention it only to be frank with you. From the moment I sawyou, I was perplexed by a memory and a resemblance. Then, too, I caughtthe air of big things about you. That attitude which you have justtaken solved it all. It is the counterpart of your photograph in lastSunday's _Times_--the full-page snap shot. I must be frank with you oryou will not believe me."
The mustache of Norcross raised just a trifle, and his eyes glittered.
"Passing over what I may think of your revelations," he said, "you're aremarkable woman."
"If you're coming again," said Mrs. Markham, "perhaps you'd better notdelve into my personality. It interferes. Understand, I'm reallyflattered to have a man like you take notice of this work. That's why Iask that your notice shan't be personal. At least not yet."
"Since this is a--a--professional relation, may I ask how much I oweyou?"
"My price is twenty-five dollars a sitting--for those who can affordit."
Norcross drew out his wallet, handed Mrs. Markham three bills. Withoutlooking at them, she dropped them on the table beside her. "You see,"she went on as though her mind were still following their discussion,"I don't like to talk much with my--patients. I never can know when Imay unconsciously steal from what they tell me."
At the entrance, Norcross hesitated, as though hoping for somethingmore than a good-night. No more than that did she give him, however. Hehimself was obliged to introduce the subject in his mind. "If I shouldcome again, would Helen tell me more?"
"Perhaps. From the excellent result to-night I should call it likely."
"Then may I come again?" His voice broke once, as with eagerness.
"Certainly. Will you make an appointment?"
"Tuesday night?"
"I had an engagement for Tuesday. Could you come as well on Friday?"
And though it meant postponing a directors' meeting, he answeredpromptly:
"Very well. Say Friday at eight."
And now he was in his automobile. He settled himself against thecushions and held the attitude, without motion. For five minutes he satso, until the chauffeur, who had been throwing nervous backward glancesthrough the limousine windows, asked:
"I beg your pardon, sir, did you say 'home'?"
"Yes, home," responded Norcross. And even on those words, his voicebroke again.
Mrs. Markham stood beside the table, hardly moving, until she knew bywhir and horn that the Norcross automobile was gone. Then she sentEllen to bed, and herself moved quickly to a secretary in the littlealcove library back of the drawing-room. Taking a key from her bosom,she unlocked a drawer and took out a packet of yellow legal cap paper.Holding this document concealed in a fold of her waist, she passedrapidly to an apartment upstairs. She opened the door softly, andlistened. Nothing sounded within but the light, even breathing of asleeper. After a moment, she crossed the room, finding her way expertlyin the darkness. Well within, she knelt and began some operation on thefloor.
And her hand made a slip. A crash echoed through the house. Followingthe startled, half-articulate cry of a sudden awakening, Mrs. Markham,still finding her way with marvelous precision in the darkness, passedthrough a set of portieres and crossed to the bed.
"Hush, dear," she said, "I only came upstairs to borrow a handkerchief.Go to sleep. I'm sure it won't bother your rest. Don't think of itagain."