“Ah, Mr. Malone, good evening! I have wanted to see you for some little time. Won’t you sit down? It is in reference to these articles on psychic matters which you have been writing. You opened them in a tone of healthy scepticism, tempered by humour, which was very acceptable both to me and to our public. I regret, however, to observe that your view changed as you proceeded, and that you have now assumed a position in which you really seem to condone some of these practices. That, I need not say, is not the policy of the Gazette, and we should have discontinued the articles had it not been that we had announced a series by an impartial investigator. We have to continue but the tone must change.”
“What do you wish me to do, sir?”
“You must get the funny side of it again. That is what our public loves. Poke fun at it all. Call up the maiden aunt and make her talk in an amusing fashion. You grasp my meaning?”
“I am afraid, sir, it has ceased to seem funny in my eyes. On the contrary, I take it more and more seriously.”
Beaumont shook his solemn head.
“So, unfortunately, do our subscribers.” He had a small pile of letters upon the desk beside him and he took one up. “Look at this: ‘I had always regarded your paper as a God-fearing publication, and I would remind you that such practices as your correspondent seems to condone are expressly forbidden both in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. I should share your sin if I continued to be a subscriber’.”
“Bigoted ass!” muttered Malone.
“So he may be, but the penny of a bigoted ass is as good as any other penny. Here is another letter: ‘Surely in this age of free-thought and enlightenment you are not helping a movement which tries to lead us back to the exploded idea of angelic and diabolic intelligences outside ourselves. If so, I must ask you to cancel my subscription’.”
“It would be amusing, sir, to shut these various objectors up in a room and let them settle it among themselves.”
“That may be, Mr. Malone, but what I have to consider is the circulation of the Gazette.”
“Don’t you think, sir, that possibly you underrate the intelligence of the public, and that behind these extremists of various sorts there is a vast body of people who have been impressed by the utterances of so many great and honourable witnesses? Is it not our duty to keep these people abreast of the real facts without making fun of them?”
Mr. Beaumont shrugged his shoulders.
“The Spiritualists must fight their own battle. This is not a propaganda newspaper, and we make no pretence to lead the public on religious beliefs.”
“No, no, I only meant as to the actual facts. Look how systematically they are kept in the dark. When, for example, did one ever read an intelligent article upon ectoplasm in any London paper? Who would imagine that this all-important substance has been examined and described and endorsed by men of science with innumerable photographs to prove their words?”
“Well, well,” said Beaumont, impatiently. “I am afraid I am too busy to argue the question. The point of this interview is that I have had a letter from Mr. Cornelius to say that we must at once take another line.”
Mr. Cornelius was the owner of the Gazette, having become so, not from any personal merit, but because his father left him some millions, part of which he expended upon this purchase. He seldom was seen in the office himself, but occasionally a paragraph in the paper recorded that his yacht had touched at Mentone and that he had been seen at the Monte Carlo tables, or that he was expected in Leicestershire for the season. He was a man of no force of brain or character, though occasionally he swayed public affairs by a manifesto printed in larger type upon his own front page. Without being dissolute, he was a free liver, living in a constant luxury which placed him always on the edge of vice and occasionally over the border. Malone’s hot blood flushed to his head as he thought of this trifler, this insect, coming between mankind and a message of instruction and consolation descending from above. And yet those clumsy, childish fingers could actually turn the tap and cut off the divine stream, however much it might break through in other quarters.
“So that is final, Mr. Malone,” said Beaumont, with the manner of one who ends an argument.
“Quite final!” said Malone. “So final that it marks the end of my connection with your paper. I have a six months’ contract. When it ends, I go!”
“Please yourself, Mr. Malone.” Mr. Beaumont went on with his writing.
Malone, with the flush of battle still upon him, went into McArdle’s room and told him what had happened. The old Scotch sub-editor was very perturbed.
“Eh, man, it’s that Irish blood of yours. A drop o’ Scotch is a good thing, either in your veins or at the bottom o’ a glass. Go back, man, and say you have reconseedered!”
“Not I! The idea of this man Cornelius, with his pot-belly and red face, and — well, you know all about his private life — the idea of such a man dictating what folk are to believe, and asking me to make fun of the holiest thing on this earth!”
“Man, you’ll be ruined!”
“Well, better men than I have been ruined over this cause. But I’ll get another job.”
“Not if Cornelius can stop you. If you get the name of an insubordinate dog there is no place for you in Fleet Street.”
“It’s a damned shame!” cried Malone. “The way this thing has been treated is a disgrace to journalism. It’s not Britain alone. America is worse. We seem to have the lowest, most soulless folk that ever lived on the Press — good-hearted fellows too, but material to a man. And these are the leaders of the people! It’s awful!”
McArdle put a fatherly hand upon the young man’s shoulder.
“Weel, weel, lad, we take the world as we find it. We didn’t make it and we’re no reesponsible. Give it time! Give it time! We’re a’ in such a hurry. Gang hame, now, think it over, remember your career, that young leddy of yours, and then come back and eat the old pie that all of us have to eat if we are to keep our places in the world.”
16. In Which Challenger Has The Experience Of His Life
So now the nets were set and the pit was dug and the hunters were all ready for the great quarry, but the question was whether the creature would allow himself to be driven in the right direction. Had Challenger been told that the meeting was really held in the hope of putting convincing evidence before him as to the truth of spirit intercourse with the aim of his eventual conversion, it would have roused mingled anger and derision in his breast. But the clever Malone, aided and abetted by Enid, still put forward the idea that his presence would be a protection against fraud, and that he would be able to point out to them how and why they had been deceived. With this thought in his mind, Challenger gave a contemptuous and condescending consent to the proposal that he should grace with his presence a proceeding which was, in his opinion, more fitted to the stone cabin of a neolithic savage than to the serious attention of one who represented the accumulated culture and wisdom of the human race.
Enid accompanied her father, and he also brought with him a curious companion who was strange both to Malone and to the rest of the company. This was a large, raw-boned Scottish youth, with a freckled face, a huge figure, and a taciturnity which nothing could penetrate. No question could discover where his interests in psychic research might lie, and the only positive thing obtained from him was that his name was Nicholl. Malone and Mailey went together to the rendezvous at Holland Park, where they found awaiting them Delicia Freeman, the Rev. Charles Mason, Mr. and Mrs. Ogilvy of the College, Mr. Bolsover of Hammersmith, and Lord Roxton, who had become assiduous in his psychic studies, and was rapidly progressing in knowledge. There were nine in all, a mixed, inharmonious assembly, from which no experienced investigator could expect great results. On entering the seance room Linden was found seated in the armchair, his wife beside him, and was introduced collectively to the company, most of whom were already his friends. Challenger took up the matter at once with the air of a man who will stand no nonsense.
“Is this the medium?” he asked, eyeing Linden with much disfavour.
“Yes.”
“Has he been searched?”
“Not yet.”
“Who will search him?”
“Two men of the company have been selected.’-
Challenger sniffed his suspicions.
“Which men?” he asked.
“It is suggested that you and your friend, Mr. Nicholl,shall do so. There is a bedroom next door.”
Poor Linden was marched off between them in a manner which reminded him unpleasantly of his prison experiences. He had been nervous before, but this ordeal and the overpowering presence of Challenger made him still more. He shook his head mournfully at Mailey when he reappeared.
“I doubt we will get nothing to-day. Maybe it would be wise to postpone the sitting,” said he.
Mailey came round and patted him on the shoulder, while Mrs. Linden took his hand.
“It’s all right, Tom,” said Mailey. “Remember that you have a bodyguard of friends round you who won’t see you ill-used.” Then Mailey spoke to Challenger in a sterner way than was his wont. “I beg you to remember, sir, that a medium is as delicate an instrument as any to be found in your laboratories. Do not abuse it. I presume that you found nothing compromising upon his person?”
“No, sir, I did not. And as a result he assures us that we will get nothing to-day.”
“He says so because your manner has disturbed him. You must treat him more gently.”
Challenger’s expression did not promise any amendment. His eyes fell upon Mrs. Linden.
“I understand that this person is the medium’s wife. She should also be searched.”
“That is a matter of course,” said the Scotsman Ogilvy. “My wife and your daughter will take her out. But I beg you, Professor Challenger, to be as harmonious as you can, and to remember that we are all as interested in the results as you are, so that the whole company will suffer if you should disturb the conditions.”
Mr. Bolsover, the grocer, rose with as much dignity as if he were presiding at his favourite temple.
“I move,” said he, “that Professor Challenger be searched.”
Challenger’s beard bristled with anger.
“Search me! What do you mean, sir?”
Bolsover was not to be intimidated.
“You are here not as our friend but as our enemy. If you was to prove fraud it would be a personal triumph for you — see? Therefore I, for one, says as you should be searched.”
“Do you mean to insinuate, sir, that I am capable of cheating?” trumpeted Challenger.
“Well, Professor, we are all accused of it in turn,” said Mailey smiling. “We all feel as indignant as you are at first, but after a time you get used to it. I’ve been called a liar, a lunatic — goodness knows what. What does it matter?”
“It is a monstrous proposition,” said Challenger, glaring all round him.
“Well, sir,” said Ogilvy, who was a particularly pertinacious Scot. “Of course, it is open to you to walk out of the room and leave us. But if you sit, you must sit under what we consider to be scientific conditions. It is not scientific that a man who is known to be bitterly hostile to the movement should sit with us in the dark with no check as to what he may have in his pockets.”
“Come, come!” cried Malone. “Surely we can trust to the honour of Professor Challenger.”
“That’s all very well,” said Bolsover. “I did not observe that Professor Challenger trusted so very much to the honour of Mr. and Mrs. Linden.”
“We have cause to be careful,” said Ogilvy. “I can assure you that there are frauds practised on mediums just as there are frauds practised by mediums. I could give you plenty of examples. No, sir, you will have to be searched.”
“It won’t take a minute,” said Lord Roxton. “What I mean, young Malone here and I could give you a once over in no time.”
“Quite so, come on!” said Malone.
And so Challenger, like a red-eyed bull with dilating nostrils, was led from the room. A few minutes later, all preliminaries being completed, they were seated in the circle and the seance had begun.
But already the conditions had been destroyed. Those meticulous researchers who insist upon tying up a medium until the poor creature resembles a fowl trussed for roasting, or who glare their suspicions at him before the lights are lowered, do not realise that they are like people who add moisture to gunpowder and then expect to explode it. They ruin their own results, and then when those results do not occur imagine that their own astuteness, rather than their own lack of understanding, has been the cause.
Hence it is that at humble gatherings all over the land, in an atmosphere of sympathy and of reverence, there are such happenings as the cold man of “Science” is never privileged to see.
All the sitters felt churned up by the preliminary altercation, but how much more did it mean to the sensitive centre of it all! To him the room was filled with conflicting rushes and eddies of psychic power, whirling this way or that, and as difficult for him to navigate as the rapids below Niagara. He groaned in his despair. Everything was mixed and confused. He was beginning as usual with his clairvoyance, but names buzzed in his etheric ears without sequence or order. The word “John “ seemed to predominate, so he said. Did “John “ mean anything to anyone? A cavernous laugh from Challenger was the only reply. Then he had the surname of Chapman. Yes, Mailey had lost a friend named Chapman. But, it was years ago and there seemed no reason for his presence, nor could he furnish his Christian name. “Budworth “ — no; no one would own to a friend named Budworth. Definite messages came across, but they seemed to have no reference to the present company. Everything was going amiss, and Malone’s spirits sank to zero. Challenger sniffed so loudly that Ogilvy remonstrated.
“You make matters worse, sir, when you show your feelings,” said he. “I can assure you that in ten years of constant experience I have never known the medium so far out, and I attribute it entirely to your own conduct.”
“Quite so,” said Challenger with satisfaction.
“I am afraid it is no use, Tom,” said Mrs. Linden. “How are you feeling now, dear? Would you wish to stop?” But Linden under all his gentle exterior, was a fighter. He had in another form those same qualities which had brought his brother within an ace of the Lonsdale Belt.
“No, I think, maybe, it is only the mental part that is confused. If I am in trance I’ll get past that. The physicals may be better. Anyhow I’ll try.”
The lights were turned lower until they were a mere crimson glimmer. The curtain of the cabinet was drawn. Outside it on the one side, dimly outlined to his audience, Tom Linden, breathing stertorously in his trance, lay back in a wooden armchair. His wife kept watch and ward at the other side of the cabinet.
But nothing happened.
Quarter of an hour passed. Then another quarter of an hour. The company was patient, but Challenger had begun to fidget in his seat. Everything seemed to have gone cold and dead. Not only was nothing happening, but somehow all expectation of anything happening seemed to have passed away.
“It’s no use!” cried Mailey at last.
“I fear not,” said Malone.
The medium stirred and groaned; he was waking up. Challenger gave an ostentatious yawn
“Is not this a waste of time?” he asked.
Mrs. Linden was passing her hand over the medium’s head and brow. His eyes had opened.
“Any results?” he asked.
“It’s no use, Tom. We shall have to postpone.”
“I think so, too, “ said Mailey.
“It is a great strain upon him under these adverse conditions,” remarked Ogilvy, looking angrily at Challenger.
“I should think so,” said the latter with a complacent smile.
But Linden was not to be beaten.
“The conditions are bad,” said he. “The vibrations are all wrong. But I’ll try inside the cabinet. It concentrates the fo
rce.”
“Well, it’s the last chance,” said Mailey. “We may as well try it.”
The armchair was lifted inside the cloth tent and the medium followed, drawing the curtain behind him.
“It condenses the ectoplasmic emanations,” Ogilvy explained.
“No doubt,” said Challenger. “At the same time in the interests of truth, I must point out that the disappearance of the medium is most regrettable.”
“For goodness sake, don’t start wrangling again,” cried Mailey with impatience. “Let us get some results, and then it will be time enough to discuss their value.”
Again there was a weary wait. Then came some hollow groanings from inside the cabinet. The Spiritualists sat up expectantly.
“That’s ectoplasm,” said Ogilvy. “It always causes pain on emission.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the curtains were torn open with sudden violence and a rattling of all the rings. In the dark aperture there was outlined a vague white figure. It advanced slowly and with hesitation into the centre of the room. In the red-tinted gloom all definite outline was lost, and it appeared simply as a moving white patch in the darkness. With the deliberation which suggested fear it came, step by step, until it was opposite the professor.
“Now!” he bellowed in his stentorian voice.
There was a shout, a scream, a crash. “I’ve got him!” roared someone. “Turn up the lights!” yelled another. “Be careful! You may kill the medium!” cried a third. The circle was broken. Challenger rushed to the switch and put on all the lights. The place was so flooded with radiance that it was some seconds before the bewildered and half-blinded spectators could see the details.
Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) Page 248