“Nine pounds,” said Bolsover. “Well, we seem to have got to the end of things. I don’t think we shall get much more to-night. It has not been a bad sitting — what I should call a fair average sitting. We must wait a little before we turn on the light. Well, Mr. Malone, what do you think of it? Let’s have any objections now before we part. That’s the worst of you inquirers, you know. You often bottle things up in your own minds and let them loose afterwards, when it would have been easy to settle it at the time. Very nice and polite to our faces, and then we are a gang of swindlers in the report.”
Malone’s head was throbbing and he passed his hand over his heated brow.
“I am confused,” he said, “but impressed. Oh, yes, certainly impressed. I’ve read of these things, but it is very different when you see them. What weighs most with me is the obvious sincerity and sanity of all you people. No one could doubt that.”
“Come. We’re gettin’ on.” said Bolsover.
“I try to think the objections which would be raised by others who were not present. I’ll have to answer them. First, there is the oddity of it all. It is so different to our preconceptions of spirit people.”
“We must fit our theories to the facts,” said Mailey. “Up to now we have fitted the facts to our theories. You must remember that we have been dealing to-night — with all respect to our dear good hosts — with a simple, primitive, earthly type of spirit, who has his very definite uses, but is not to be taken as an average type. You might as well take the stevedore whom you see on the quay as being a representative Englishman.”
“There’s Luke” said Bolsover.
“Ah, yes, he is, of course, very much higher. You heard him and could judge. What else, Mr. Malone?”
“Well, the darkness! Everything done in darkness. Why should all mediumship be associated with gloom?”
“You mean all physical mediumship. That is the only branch of the subject which needs darkness. It is purely chemical, like the darkness of the photographic room. It preserves the delicate physical substance which, drawn from the human body, is the basis of these phenomena. A cabinet is used for the purpose of condensing this same vaporous substance and helping it to solidify. Am I clear?”
“Yes, but it is a pity all the same. It gives a horrible air of deceit to the whole business.”
“We get it now and again in the light, Mr. Malone,” said Bolsover. “I don’t know if Wee One is gone yet. Wait a bit! Where are the matches?” He lit the candle, which set them all blinking after their long darkness, “Now let us see what we can do.”
There was a round wood platter or circle of wood lying among the miscellaneous objects littered over the table to serve as playthings for the strange forces. Bolsover stared at it. They all stared at it. They had risen but no one was within three feet of it.
“Please, Wee One, please!” cried Mrs. Bolsover. Malone could hardly believe his eyes. The disc began to move. It quivered and then rattled upon the table, exactly as the lid of a boiling pot might do.
“Up with it, Wee One!” They were all clapping their hands.
The circle of wood, in the full light of the candle, rose upon edge and stood there shaking, as if trying to keep its balance.
“Give three tilts, Wee One.”
The disc inclined forward three times. Then it fell flat and remained so.
“I am so glad you have seen that,” said Mailey. “There is Telekenesis in its simplest and most decisive form.”
“I could not have believed it!” cried Enid.
“Nor I,” said Malone. “I have extended my knowledge of what is possible. Mr. Bolsover, you have enlarged my views.”
“Good, Mr. Malone!”
“As to the power at the back of these things I am still ignorant. As to the thing themselves I have now and henceforward not the slightest doubt in the world. I know that they are true. I wish you all good night. It is not likely that Miss Challenger or I will ever forget the evening that we have spent under your roof”
It was like another world when they came out into the frosty air, and saw the taxis bearing back the pleasure-seekers from the theatre or cinema palace. Mailey stood beside them while they waited for a cab.
“I know exactly how you feel,” he said, smiling. “You look at all these bustling, complacent people, and you marvel to think how little they know of the possibilities of life. Don’t you want to stop them? Don’t you want to tell them? And yet they would only think you a liar or a lunatic. Funny situation, is it not?”
“I’ve lost all my bearings for the moment.”
“They will come back to-morrow morning. It is curious how fleeting these impressions are. You will persuade yourselves that you have been dreaming. Well, good-bye — and let me know if I can help your studies in the future.” The friends — one could hardly yet call them lovers — were absorbed in thought during their drive home. When he reached Victoria Gardens Malone escorted Enid to the door of the flat, but he did not go in with her. Somehow the jeers of Challenger which usually rather woke sympathy within him would now get upon his nerves. As it was he heard his greeting in the hall.
“Well, Enid. Where’s your spook? Spill him out of the bag on the floor and let us have a look at him.” His evening’s adventure ended as it had begun, with a bellow of laughter which pursued him down the lift.
5. Where Our Commissioners Have A Remarkable Experience
MALONE sat at the side table of the smoking-room of the Literary Club. He had Enid’s impressions of the seance before him — very subtle and observant they were — and he was endeavouring to merge them in his own experience. A group of men were smoking and chatting round the fire. This did not disturb the journalist, who found, as many do, that his brain and his pen worked best sometimes when they were stimulated by the knowledge that he was part of a busy world. Presently, however, somebody who observed his presence brought the talk round to psychic subjects, and then it was more difficult for him to remain aloof. He leaned back in his chair and listened.
Polter, the famous novelist, was there, a brilliant man with a subtle mind, which he used too often to avoid obvious truth and to defend some impossible position for the sake of the empty dialectic exercise. He was holding forth now to an admiring, but not entirely a subservient audience.
“Science,” said he, “is gradually sweeping the world clear of all these old cobwebs of superstition. The world was like some old, dusty attic, and the sun of science is bursting in, flooding it with light, while the dust settles gradually to the floor.”
“By science,” said someone maliciously, “you mean, of course, men like Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Barrett, Lombroso, Richet, and so forth.”
Polter was not accustomed to be countered, and usually became rude.
“No, sir, I mean nothing so preposterous,” he answered, with a glare. “No name, however eminent, can claim to stand for science so long as he is a member of an insignificant minority of scientific men.”
“He is, then, a crank,” said Pollifex, the artist, who usually played jackal to Polter.
The objector, one Millworthy, a free-lance of journalism, was not to be so easily silenced.
“Then Galileo was a crank in his day,” said he. “And Harvey was a crank when he was laughed at over the circulation of the blood.”
“It’s the circulation of the Daily Gazette which is at stake,” said Marrible, the humorist of the club. “If they get off their stunt I don’t suppose they care a tinker’s curse what is truth or what is not.”
“Why such things should be examined at all, except in a police court, I can’t imagine,” said Polter. “It is a dispersal of energy, a misdirection of human thought into channels which lead nowhere. We have plenty of obvious, material things to examine. Let us get on with our job.”
Atkinson, the surgeon, was one of the circle, and had sat silently listening. Now he spoke.
“I think the learned bodies should find more time for the consideration
of psychic matters.”
“Less,” said Polter.
“You can’t have less than nothing. They ignore them altogether. Some time ago I had a series of cases of telepathic rapport which I wished to lay before the Royal Society. My colleague Wilson, the zoologist, also had a paper which he proposed to read. They went in together. His was accepted and mine rejected. The title of his paper was ‘The Reproductive System of the Dung-Beetle’.”
There was a general laugh.
“Quite right, too,” said Polter. “The humble dung-beetle was at least a fact. All this psychic stuff is not.”
“No doubt you have good grounds for your views,” chirped the mischievous Millworthy, a mild youth with a velvety manner. “I have little time for solid reading, so I should like to ask you which of Dr. Crawford’s three books you consider the best?”
“I never heard of the fellow.”
Millworthy simulated intense surprise.
“Good Heavens, man! Why, he is the authority. If you want pure laboratory experiments those are the books. You might as well lay down the law about zoology and confess that you had never heard of Darwin.”
“This is not science,” said Polter, emphatically.
“What is really not science,” said Atkinson, with some heat, “is the laying down of the law on matters which you have not studied. It is talk of that sort which has brought me to the edge of Spiritualism, when I compare this dogmatic ignorance with the earnest search for truth conducted by the great Spiritualists. Many of them took twenty years of work before they formed their conclusions.”
“But their conclusions are worthless because they are upholding a formed opinion.”
“But each of them fought a long fight before he formed that opinion. I know a few of them, and there is not one who did not take a lot of convincing.” Polter shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, they can have their spooks if it makes them happier so long as they let me keep my feet firm on the ground.”
“Or stuck in the mud,” said Atkinson.
“I would rather be in the mud with sane people thin in the air with lunatics,” said Polter. “I know some of these Spiritualists people and I believe that you can divide them equally into fools and rogues.”
Malone had listened with interest and then with a growing indignation. Now he suddenly took fire.
“Look here, Polter,” he said, turning his chair towards the company, “it is fools and dolts like you which are holding back the world’s progress. You admit that you have read nothing of this, and I’ll swear you have seen nothing. Yet you use the position and the name which you have won in other matters in order to discredit a number of people who, whatever they may be, are certainly very earnest and very thoughtful.”
“Oh,” said Polter, “I had no idea you had got so far. You don’t dare to say so in your articles. You are a Spiritualist then. That rather discounts your views, does it not?”
“I am not a Spiritualist, but I am an honest inquirer, and that is more than you have ever been. You call them rogues and fools, but, little as I know, I am sure that some of them are men and women whose boots you are not worthy to clean.”
“Oh, come, Malone!” cried one or two voices, but the insulted Polter was on his feet. “It’s men like you who empty this club,” he cried, as he swept out. “I shall certainly never come here again to be insulted.”
“I say, you’ve done it, Malone!”
“I felt inclined to help him out with a kick. Why should he ride roughshod over other people’s feelings and beliefs? He has got on and most of us haven’t, so he thinks it’s a condescension to come among us.”
“Dear old Irishman!” said Atkinson, patting his shoulder. “Rest, perturbed spirit, rest! But I wanted to have a word with you. Indeed, I was waiting here because I did not want to interrupt you.”
“I’ve had interruptions enough!” cried Malone. “How could I work with that damned donkey braying in my ear?”
“Well, I’ve only a word to say. I’ve got a sitting with Linden, the famous medium of whom I spoke to you, at the Psychic College to-night. I have an extra ticket. Would you care to come?”
“Come? I should think so!”
“I have another ticket. I should have asked Polter if he had not been so offensive. Linden does not mind sceptics, but objects to scoffers. Who should I ask?”
“Let Miss Enid Challenger come. We work together, you know.”
“Why, of course I will. Will you let her know?”
“Certainly.”
“It’s at seven o’clock to-night. The Psychic College. You know the place down at Holland Park.”
“Yes, I have the address. Very well, Miss Challenger and I will certainly be there.”
Behold the pair, then, upon a fresh psychic adventure. They picked Atkinson up at Wimpole Street, and then traversed that long, roaring rushing, driving belt of the great city which extends through Oxford Street and Bayswater to Notting Hill and the stately Victorian houses of Holland Park. It was at one of these that the taxi drew up, a large, imposing building, standing back a little from the road. A smart maid admitted them, and the subdued light of the tinted hall-lamp fell upon shining linoleum and polished woodwork with the gleam of white marble statuary in the corner. Enid’s female perceptions told her of a well-run, well-appointed establishment, with a capable direction at the head. This direction took the shape of a kindly Scottish lady who met them in the hall and greeted Mr. Atkinson as an old friend. She was, in turn, introduced to the journalists as Mrs. Ogilvy. Malone had already heard how her husband and she had founded and run this remarkable institute, which is the centre of psychic experiment in London, at a very great cost, both in labour and in money, to themselves.
“Linden and his wife have gone up,” said Mrs. Ogilvy. “He seems to think that the conditions are favourable. The rest are in the drawing-room. Won’t you join them for a few minutes?”
Quite a number of people had gathered for the seance, some of them old psychic students who were mildly interested, others, beginners who looked about them with rather startled eyes, wondering what was going to happen next. A tall man was standing near the door who turned and disclosed the tawny beard and open face of Algernon Mailey. He shook hands with the newcomers.
“Another experience, Mr. Malone? Well, I thought you gave a very fair account of the last. You are still a neophyte, but you are well within the gates of the temple. Are you alarmed, Miss Challenger?”
“I don’t think I could be while you were around,” she answered.
He laughed.
“Of course, a materialisation seance is a little different to any other — more impressive, in a way. You’ll find it very instructive, Malone, as bearing upon psychic photography and other matters. By the way, you should try for a psychic picture. The famous Hope works upstairs.”
“I always thought that that at least was fraud.”
“On the contrary, I should say it was the best established of all phenomena, the one which leaves the most permanent proof. I’ve been a dozen times under every possible test conditions. The real trouble is, not that it lends itself to fraud, but that it lends itself to exploitation by that villainous journalism which cares only for a sensation. Do you know anyone here?”
“No, we don’t.”
“The tall, handsome lady is the Duchess of Rossland. Then, there are Lord and Lady Montnoir, the middle-aged couple near the fire. Real, good folk and among the very few of the aristocracy who have shown earnestness and moral courage in this matter. The talkative lady is Miss Badley, who lives for seances, a jaded Society woman in search of new sensations — always visible, always audible, and always empty. I don’t know the two men. I heard someone say they were researchers from the university. The stout man with the lady in black is Sir James Smith — they lost two boys in the war. The tall, dark person, is a weird man named Barclay, who lives, I understand, in one room and seldom comes out save for a seance.”
“And the man with
the horn glasses?”
“That is a pompous ass named Weatherby. He is one of those who wander about on the obscure edges of Masonry, talking with whispers and reverence of mysteries where no mystery is. Spiritualism, with its very real and awful mysteries, is, to him, a vulgar thing because it brought consolation to common folk, but he loves to read papers on the Palladian Cultus, ancient and accepted Scottish rites, and Baphometic figures. Eliphas Levi is his prophet.”
“It sounds very learned.” said Enid.
“Or very absurd. But, hullo! Here are mutual friends.” The two Bolsovers had arrived, very hot and frowsy and genial. There is no such leveller of classes as Spiritualism, and the charwoman with psychic force is the superior of the millionaire who lacks it. The Bolsovers and the aristocrats fraternized instantly. The Duchess was just asking for admission to the grocer’s circle, when Mrs. Ogilvy bustled in.
“I think everyone is here now,” she said. “It is time to go upstairs.”
The seance room was a large, comfortable chamber on the first floor, with a circle of easy chairs, and a curtain-hung divan which served as a cabinet. The medium and his wife were waiting there. Mr. Linden was a gentle, large-featured man, stoutish in build, deep-chested, clean-shaven, with dreamy, blue eyes and flaxen, curly hair which rose in a pyramid at the apex of his head. He was of middle age. His wife was rather younger, with the sharp, querulous expression of the tired housekeeper, and quick, critical eyes, which softened into something like adoration when she looked at her husband. Her role was to explain matters, and to guard his interests while he was unconscious.
“The sitters had better just take their own places,” said the medium. “If you can alternate the sexes it is as well. Don’t cross your knees, it breaks the current. If we have a materialisation, don’t grab at it. If you do, you are liable to injure me.”
The two sleuths of the Research Society looked at each other knowingly. Mailey observed it.
“Quite right,” he said. “I have seen two cases of dangerous haemorrhage in the medium brought on by that very cause.”
Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) Page 233