The Professor's Mystery

by Wells Hastings and Brian Hooker

  CHAPTER XXIII

  I STAND BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

  After a few empty minutes, I went quietly out of the house, and at theend of the drive paused to look back over the sunlit lawn with itsbright flower-beds and heavy trees. My work was plain enough before menow; I saw what I had to do, and the only question was my method ofapproach. The impossibility of it somehow did not interest me. I did notwant to think the situation over, but merely to decide at what point Ishould first take hold upon it; and I was eager to begin. As I stoodthere, I saw Doctor Reid, in loose flannels and with a tennis racket inhis hand, come in the side gate and walk jerkily toward the garage inthe rear. Here was one thing to be done at least, and I might as wellattend to it while I was on the ground.

  His springy step was on the stairs as I entered the building after him,and I overtook him at the top, shuffling from one foot to the otherbefore an oaken door, while he hunted through his pockets for the key.He turned sharply at the sound of my coming.

  "What are you doing here?" was his greeting.

  "Reid," said I, "I have to say to you that I regret forcing that matteron you the other night; and if you'll give me a little time, I want totell you why. It will end in our pulling more or less together, insteadof fighting each other."

  His face set for an instant, then he made up his mind. "Very well. I'mfree for a while. Come in. No occasion perhaps for an apology: spoke toohastily myself. No sense in being emotional." He threw open the door andstepped back. "My digestion wasn't normal that day, you see.Fermentation. Generally a physical basis for those things. Alcoholbesides."

  I preceded him into a sudden blaze of air and sunlight, a firstimpression of wide space and staring cleanliness. While I blinked, Reidswung a leather covered chair toward me, with a word of hasty excuse.

  "Just been exercising, you see, and I've got to take my shower. Greatmistake sitting down without. I'll be with you in half a moment," and hevanished behind a rubber curtain that ran on a nickeled rod before analcove at the back, leaving me to look about the room. It was verylarge, occupying the whole breadth of the building, and fitted up withan astonishing combination of convenience and hygiene. Dull red tilescovered the floor and rose like a wainscot half way up the walls. Abovethat ran a belt of white, glazed paper enameled to represent tiling; andthe ceiling was of corrugated metal, also enameled white. Two largewindows in front, and one on either side, wide open behind wire screens,and uncurtained, let in a flood of light and air which somehow inentering seemed to exchange its outdoor freshness for the sterilized,careful purity of a laboratory. Between the front windows a largeglass-topped table bore a microscope and microtome covered by glassbells, a Bunsen burner, and a most orderly collection of bottles andtest-tubes. On one side of this was a porcelain sink, and on the other aheavy oak desk with a telephone and every utensil in place. Steelsectional bookcases along the walls displayed rows of technical booksand gleaming instruments. In one corner stood an iron bed, with a stripof green grass matting before it, and in the other a pair of Indianclubs and a set of chest-weights flanked an anthropometric scale. Theonly decorations were a large print of Rembrandt's _Anatomy_, two orthree surprisingly good nudes, and a few glaring French medicalcaricatures. And everything possible about the room was covered withglass--tables, desk, bookcases, the shelves above the sink, and the verywindow-sills. If ever a room did so, this one declared the character ofits inhabitant; and looking upon its comfortless convenience, I caughtmyself wondering how any normal woman could endure marriage with such anantiseptic personality. Then as Reid issued from his bath, glowing andalert with vivid energy and contagiously alive, the idea seemed notinconceivable after all.

  "Pretty comfortable place, eh?" he burst forth. "Fine. Fine. All my ownidea. Fitted it up according to my own notion. Everything I need righthere, nothing useless, plenty of light and ventilation. Have acigarette? I don't smoke often myself, but I keep 'em at hand. Best formto take tobacco, if you don't inhale. Popular idea all rot."

  I lit one and settled back. "I've just asked Lady to marry me," I said,as quietly as I could. "She says that the only reason she won't is hermother. And I understand why."

  His face lighted for a moment. "I told Tabor you'd be at the bottom ofit eventually. As for the other matter--well, it has to be reckonedwith. Strongest motive we have. The race has got to go on." He frownedsuddenly: "How much do you know?"

  "I know that Carucci lied; I know that Mrs. Tabor is out of her mind; Iknow that her delusion takes the form of a horror of marriage,because--" I stopped, searching for a softened form of words; but Reidtook up the broken sentence and went evenly on, as impersonallyscientific as if we had been speaking of strangers.

  "Because of my wife's death. Hysteria aggravated by introspection. Fixedidea of Miriam's continual presence--what's that line?--'the wish fatherto the thought'-- The psychic element in these things, you know, doesreact on the physical. Whole thing moves in a circle. Then paranoia."

  "She's got to get well," I said. "What's the best chance? What can wedo?"

  "We're doing all we can. We've called the best man in the country. Youcan't depend on any prognosis, you know. We don't understand thesethings perfectly, at best. There's no rigid line of demarcation betweeninsanity and hysteria. Nervous and mental diseases run into each other.You can't tell."

  "Just what does Doctor Paulus say?"

  "Paranoia. Says if there were continual external suggestions of Miriamhe'd call it only hysterical; but we guard her as far as possible fromanything of the kind. If she originates the hallucinations herself, it'smental. Nothing to do but keep her quiet, avoid all reminders, avoidexcitement, lead her mind in other directions, suggest normality.Nothing more possible, unless we take her abroad for hypnotic treatment,and that doesn't seem advisable. Nothing else to be done. Question oftime."

  "Then it's just a question of getting rid of this fixed idea?"

  "Well, but that's begging the whole question, Crosby, don't you see? Thefixed idea is the disease. You're a layman, you know, and you look at itwith the simplicity of ignorance. No offense meant, but that's the plainfact, you know. Paulus doesn't call it hopeless, but Rome wasn't builtin a day. Nothing to do but wait."

  "I'm going to find something to do," I said, "because something has gotto be done."

  "Right spirit. Right way to face a difficulty. Always best to beoptimistic. But of course, you mustn't risk any private experiments. Youunderstand that. Might do harm. Hell's paved with good intentions, youknow, and we've got an expert on the case. Where there's any work foryou, we'll count you in, but you mustn't butt in."

  I rose from my chair. "Of course I've no idea of putting in my oarwithout authority. Give me credit for that much sense--and thank you formaking me understand the facts. Tell Mr. Tabor of this conversation,will you? I'm off to New York."

  "Certainly. Certainly. By the way, Crosby, I suppose I ought tocongratulate you. Fine. Fine. Well, we've all got to be patient and hopefor the best. It's hard, of course. But life's a hard struggle. A hardstruggle. Good-by. Can you see your way down?"

  As Reid had intelligently observed, it was hard. And the hardest part ofit was the waiting. I saw Maclean that same night, and without evincingmore than an ordinary curiosity about spiritualism, arranged to be takento the next of the seances. After that, there was nothing to do untilone should be held. The slender thread of coincidence between Sheila'sghost-stories and my experiences at the last one was my single chanceof discovering a remedy of which the doctors did not know. Probably Ishould discover nothing of any use; but until I could contribute somedefinite help, I would not go back to Stamford. I had made more thanenough trouble there already.

  It was another week before the chance came. And I was a little surprisedwhen Maclean conducted me not to the closed house we had before visited,but to the house on Ninety-second Street to which I had followed DoctorPaulus on his way home.

  "Oh, they meet around at one another's houses," Mac explained as we wentup the steps. "It's a gang of so
cial lights that's runnin' these stuntsas a fad, you see? An' the psychic researchers, they ring in. Now thistime, see if you can't keep something on your stomach besides your hand.You missed a pile of fun last performance."

  It was a very different sort of house from the other; wide open and fullof the sense of family inhabitance, a house full of silk hangings andnew mahogany and vases of unseasonable flowers, an orchid of a house, ahouse where people would be like their own automobile, polished andexpensive and a trifle fast. Professor Shelburgh was there, looking alittle out of his element; and the others, by what I could tell, weremostly the same people as before; but there were more of them, twenty ortwenty-five all told, chattering in groups about the brilliant room andgiving it almost the air of a reception. It was evening, and theelectric light and the formal dress of most of the guests added to theimpression. I had my first good look at the medium before theproceedings began; a fattish, fluffy woman with large eyes, pale-hairedand slow-moving, whose voluble trivialities of conversation and dressexaggerated both vulgarism and convention. For a moment or two, Iwrestled with an uncanny certainty of having seen her somewhere before,groping about among recollections. Then all at once I remembered; shewas the woman who had been with us in the trolley accident, the womanwho had so curiously discovered the whereabouts of the chain.

  As before, the circle formed about the center-table consisted of only adozen or so, and the rest of us were left sitting about the walls. Thedoors were closed, and the extinguishing of the lights left the room inalmost utter darkness. The greenish pallor about the edges of thewindows made it possible to imagine rather than to see. The gloom hadthe solidity of closed eyelids; and perhaps because of the suddentransition from brilliant light, it had the same fullness of indefinitecolor and movement; as when one suddenly buries one's face in thepillow, with the light still burning. I caught myself unconsciouslystraining my eyes to observe these half-imaginary after-images. Anddespite the difference of environment, the sitters had hardly beguntheir tuneless crooning of old songs before I felt the same breathlesscloseness as before, the same saturated oppression, the same feeling ofuncomfortable and even indecent overcrowding.

  I steadied myself with long breaths, bracing involuntarily against thetension. Then all at once, the door opened silently and softly closed;and as I turned to look some one rustled past me, visible only as asolid shadow in the gloom, and without a word slipped into a seat at thetable. The others made room, and a chair was moved up quietly, no onespeaking or even pausing in the song. But my heart pounded in my earsand my hands heated as I clenched them, for somehow I knew as certainlyas if I could have plainly seen that the new-comer was Mrs. Tabor.

  And it was as if she brought with her an increase of the already tenseexpectancy, as if her own nervous trouble spread out about her like adeepening of color, like a drop of blood falling into water alreadytinged with red. It was my own imagination, of course, the excitement ofbeing close upon my quest, and the reaction of silence closing over theinterruption of her entrance; but I felt the exertion of breathing, asif I were immersed up to the chin in water. If the atmosphere had beenlike a weight before, it was now like a deliberately closing vise. Inthe intervals of the droning hum at the table, the silence took on aquality of brittleness. Little brushings and rustlings ran in wavesaround the room, and I thought how a breeze runs over a field of tallgrass, where each tuft in turn takes up its neighbor's restlessness. Itoccurred to me suddenly that most of the people here were women; and thesense of crowded presence led me to imagining crowds and throngs ofwomen grouped in pictures or dancing in rows upon the stage. And then Iremembered sharply that I could not see Mrs. Tabor and wondered whethermy certainty that it was she had any more foundation than these otherfantasies. I heard my own breathing, and that of many others. I feltvaguely irritated that all these breathings were not keeping time, andinstinctively brought my own into the rhythm of the predominatingnumber.

  A chair creaked softly, and I started, while the skin tightened over mycheeks and my tongue dried and tasted salt. The medium seemed to bewrithing about, making little soft urging noises, like muffled groans orthe nameless sound that goes with lifting a heavy burden or suddenlyexerting the whole strength of the body. Then the peculiar paddedrapping began. The incongruously matter-of-fact voice of the professorasked: "Are the hands all here?" and the circle counted in a low tonewhile the raps went irregularly on. Some woman across the room gigglednervously. Why these trivial details did not interrupt and relieve thetension, I do not know; but their very absurdity seemed to intensify it;I was hot and puffy and a trifle faint. Suddenly Maclean gripped myknee, and muttered: "Look at the table-- My God, look at the table--!"

  I do not know just how to describe it; to say that I saw is notliterally accurate, for it was really too dark to see; the table and thegroup around it were no more than a bulk in the midst of darkness. Butas I strained my eyes toward it, that blur of unconvincing cloudinesswhich I had seen or fancied before swelled into mid-air, showing againstthe dark like black with light upon it against black in shadow. Andilluminated as it were by that visible darkness, the table beneath itrose up from its place under the circle of hands, wavered as thoughafloat upon the rising stream of a fountain, then settled with a thudand a creak down again upon the floor. There was a momentary silence,full of crowded breathings. While I was wondering confusedly how much ofit I had only imagined, Professor Shelburgh said calmly: "That's thebest levitation we've had so far. Who did it? Who is there?" And thethroaty, querulous contralto answered: "I did. Miriam. Do you want anymore?"

  Another man somewhere in the circle stammered uncomfortably:"I--well--er--I beg your pardon, but--could you move something quitebeyond our reach? One of those things on the bookcase, for instance?"

  "What for?" whined the voice, "you wouldn't believe it anyway-- I don'twant to talk to you-- Is mother there?"

  Maclean's hand relaxed upon my knee, and he sniffed audibly. But theanswer brought my heart into my throat, for I knew who made it, beyondthe possibility of mistake.

  "Yes, dear," Mrs. Tabor said quietly. "What is it?"

  "I wanted--to see you-- Why didn't you come last time?-- I get--lonelysometimes--"

  "I couldn't come before. Aren't you happy?" She might have been speakingto a child crying in its bed.

  "I want to--come back-- I want--you, mother dear-- I'm very happy, butI--went away too soon."

  "But I've seen you every day at home, dear child."

  "It isn't the--the same-- I can't talk--to you--there-- You're afraidof--something-- I see fear--in your heart--and--that frightens me."

  "You mustn't be afraid, Miriam--you mustn't. Nobody shall take youaway!"

  A flush and a wave of nausea went over me, and I felt my hair bristling,not with nervousness, but with a kind of anger. The unwholesomeness ofthe whole scene was too sickening--the poor mother's hystericalfondness, the utter sincerity of her emotion, and the sentimentalismthat whined in reply, so perfectly calculated to irritate and controlthe crippled mind. And the element of distorted love made it all theworse, a beauty turned sour. I thought of the dainty little lady thathad fenced with words so deftly; and only the need to understand oncefor all made me endure to listen.

  "Ask something that no one but yourself can know," the professor put in.Perhaps even he felt some embarrassment.

  Mrs. Tabor hesitated. "I wonder if I ought," she said, half to herself,"I do so want to know."

  The voice grew steadier: "Ask me what you will--mother darling-- I knowalready--what you fear."

  "Miriam, did I understand what--what I saw the other day?"

  I grew suddenly cold, and felt as if the floor were sinking under me.

  "The other day--? Fix your mind upon it, mother dear-- I see you now-- Isee you very much frightened-- You thought a new trouble wascoming--Another trouble like the first--not for yourself--but--"

  "Oh, it wasn't myself!" The dry terror of the tone was dreadfully likesomething I remembered. "It was for her--you know i
t was for her. Theylooked as if-- Does she love him, Miriam? Does she love him?"

  That was more than I would bear. The whole unnatural dialogue had beenprofane enough; but this new sacrilege-- The switch of the electriclight was in the wall behind me, and before the spirit voice could speakagain, my fingers had found and pressed it.

  The medium gave a tearing scream that was horrible to hear, twistedherself out of her chair, and jerked and wriggled on the floor, chokingand gurgling. In the sharp yellow glare, the whole room was onehysterical confusion, men and women scrambling to their feet, or sittingdazed, their hands before their eyes. The professor cried angrily:"Confound it, man, you're crazy! You're crazy! You may have killed her.Don't you know how dangerous it is to turn on light that way?" andstooped over the struggling woman on the floor, with scowling sidelongglances back at me. A couple of other men came forward threateningly,and a bejeweled woman, who seemed to be the hostess, cried acidly:"Mercy on us, who is the fellow? One of those reporters?"

  "Madam, I can promise you no publicity," said I, and I strode over towhere Mrs. Tabor had sunk forward on the table, her head motionless uponher outstretched arms. Maclean came to my rescue just in time.

  "One moment, ladies and gentlemen! Look there--the lady had fainted, yousee? Fainted before the lights went on, you see? My friend did exactlyright. Now let's keep this all as quiet as possible--we don't want asensation in the papers." Then as he helped me to raise Mrs. Tabor fromher chair, he muttered: "Darn you, Laurie, what in blazes was bitin' youanyhow?"

  Between us, we half carried her from the room, while the others wereattending to the medium and at cross-purposes among themselves. She hadnot actually fainted away, and in spite of her shock was able to walkdown-stairs with a little help. The door-bell had been ringing violentlyas we came into the upper hall; and we were still upon the stairs when aflustered maid opened the door upon Mr. Tabor.

  "Is Mrs. George Tabor--" he began. Then he caught sight of us and sprangpast the maid with a growl.

  "It's I, Mr. Tabor--Crosby. She's been to an entertainment here, andbroken down. I'll tell you later. Have you got the car outside?"

  "Yes, thank God. And Sheila's out there too. Come."

  "I'm perfectly well," Mrs. Tabor said faintly. "Nothing to worry anyone. Why are you all so nervous about me?"

  "I'll go back now," said Maclean, as we reached the front door, "an'hush up this gang up-stairs. There ain't goin' to be any disturbanceabout this. That crowd's more afraid of the leadin' dailies than theyare of the devil, you see?"

  I nodded, and the door closed behind us. Mr. Tabor did not say a word aswe led his wife across the sidewalk and into the palpitating car. Hemotioned for me to follow her.

  "Not if you can spare me, sir," I said. "I'll be out early to-morrow. Ithink I've found a key to the whole trouble, and I've got to see aboutit."

  He turned, frowning into my eyes under the white bristle of his brows.

  "Crosby," he growled, "either we've a good deal to thank you for, orelse--or else you'd better not come to-morrow."