The Road to En-dor

by E. H. Jones

  Had anyone observed my thumb, groping cautiously for the secret marks, I should have failed. Nobody observed it. Therefore I succeeded. It was only a very small instance of incomplete observation, but it made all the difference.

  There is a further point to remember. While these tests were proceeding, the Spook was not idle. He did not take them lying down. The best defence is always attack. It would never do to allow the investigators to assume the complete control of the operations, to concentrate on any single point, or to examine their own reasoning in all its nakedness. Therefore, while they were trying to discover the origin of the rational movement of the glass, the Spook counter-attacked continually by framing his replies to their questions in such a way as to divert the interest of the audience to the subject matter of the answers and away from the manner in which they were obtained. The Spook gave, for instance, appreciations of the military situation on various fronts which formed splendid food for discussion and eventually led to the issue at frequent intervals of a Spook Communique. There was one famous night which did much to establish the authenticity of our ‘control’. In answer to a query about the progress of the war, the Spook told us that America was ready to lend a hand.

  ‘What’s America going to do?’ Alec Matthews asked.

  ‘Troops – ready now – waiting,’ came the answer.

  ‘Where are they waiting, and how many?’

  ‘At sea – 100,000.’

  An excited buzz of conversation rose round the table.

  ‘Just a minute,’ said a transport expert. ‘What shipping have they got?’

  (I was now on dangerous ground, and I knew it. I made a rapid calculation.)

  ‘Three-quarter million tons,’ came the answer.

  ‘Where bound?’ asked the expert coldly.

  ‘Vladivostock.’

  ‘Russia – by Jove!’ ‘Perhaps the Caucasus!’ ‘We may get out this summer after all.’ The audience had got quite excited. Their whispered comments reached me as I waited for the next question.

  ‘Composition of the force?’ – the expert continued his cross-examination.

  ‘Three complete divisions. Five hundred aeroplanes. Motor fleet.’

  ‘Total number of ships, please?’

  ‘Large and small, 102.’ There was no pause between question and answer.

  Several of the audience had pencil and paper out (including the transport specialist), and were making detailed calculations.

  ‘By Jove,’ said the expert, ‘the figures work out about correct, so far as I can see.’ Then, in a fit of suspicion: ‘Do you know anything about transport, Doc.?’

  ‘Devil a bit,’ said the Doctor. ‘An’ I know Bones doesn’t. He’s only a weekend gunner.’

  ‘We all know that,’ said Alec.

  I grinned and bore it. I knew only one thing about transport. I had read somewhere and some-when that a modern division needs seven tons of shipping per head for a long voyage, and my poor old memory had stored up this useless bit of lore. The Spook got the credit and went on cheerily to outline the American scheme for strengthening the Russian front. Next day, in the lane, staff officers spent a happy morning arguing about the length of time it would take the Siberian railway to transport the troops to the front!

  Meanwhile another factor was contributing greatly to overcome the suspicions of the camp in general and of my own investigators in particular. The Hospital House Spook was going great guns. It produced some first-rate ‘evidential’ matter about various officers – usually relating to some secret of a ‘lurid’ past which was grudgingly admitted by the victim to be true – and was exceedingly well informed on matters relating to the war. Neither Nightingale nor Bishop had any special acquaintance with the geography of the Western Front – (that was an ‘accepted fact’ in the camp) – yet their Spook continually referred to obscure towns and villages all along the line! This was regarded as a peculiar phenomenon. It is a still more curious phenomenon why the average Britisher always will underestimate the strength of his opponent.

  Then one morning our orderly came in with a dixieful of the whole-wheat mush which we dignified with the name of porridge. He had obviously something to tell us. He stood rubbing the instep of one foot slowly up and down the calf of the other leg, and regarding me whimsically.

  ‘What’s up, Hall?’ asked Pa Davern.

  Hall ran his fingers reflectively through his hair.

  ‘I dunno, Sir,’ he said, ‘but it looks as if our show’s gettin’ left. The ’Orsepital ’Ouse Spook’s been and gone off the water waggon, I reckon.’

  ‘How?’ I asked. A fear seized me that my rival had been found out. That would mean my downfall, too.

  ‘Breakin’ windows and such,’ Hall said; ‘reg’lar Mafficking night they ’ad last night. Put the wind up them all proper.’

  ‘Poltergeistism!’ I ejaculated.

  ‘Beg pardon, Sir,’ said Hall, ‘that’s a new one. I didn’t set out for to upset you.’

  ‘He’s not swearing, for once, Hall,’ said Pa Davern. ‘Tell us about it.’

  We learned that the night before there had been a séance in the Hospital House. A new spook had appeared, calling herself ‘Millicent the Innocent’. Asked what she was ‘innocent’ of – a perfectly natural question in view of the name – she grew exceedingly angry and threatened to show her power. Some daring member of the audience challenged her to ‘carry on’, and immediately a window-pane was smashed inwards, from the outside, a washstand holding a basin full of water was upset, and a large wooden chandelier crashed down from its hook on the wall. The room was well lit at the time. It was a good twenty feet above ground level, the guards had completed their evening round, and all prisoners were locked inside the house. Nobody was within a dozen feet of any of the objects affected.

  After breakfast I went down to the Hospital House and interviewed Mundey and Edmonds. They were elated and not a little excited by the adventures of the night before. They showed me the record of the séance, and sent me to examine the broken pane.

  I saw it could have been broken with a stick from the window of a neighbouring room – a dark little closet at the head of the stairs. I went there. The window was nailed up and covered with cobwebs. Perfect! But in the grime on a little ledge below the window was the fresh imprint of a foot. I took my embassy cap and dusted it over. It was clear my rival had a confederate. Except for that little slip over the footprint his work had been very thorough, and I wondered who it could be. In those days I knew Hill only by sight, or I might have guessed.

  The camp buzzed with the discussion of the new phenomenon. Compared with this exhibition of the power of the Unseen over material things, the rational movements of the glass had become a very minor problem. I hoped it might be forgotten altogether, or accepted much as we laymen accept the beating of our hearts – as the necessary but inexplicable condition for the continued existence of human life. But Alec Matthews was a persistent and uncomfortably thorough person. He came up to me one morning as I sat sunning myself against the south wall. I saw from his eye there was something in the wind.

  ‘Morning, Bones, I wanted to see you. Little and I and a few more have been talking over those last séances. Would you object very much to one more test?’

  ‘I thought you were all satisfied,’ I said. ‘Tests are a nuisance. I don’t want to waste more time over them.’

  ‘Doc. said the same,’ said Alec. ‘But he has agreed, if you are willing. I’m pretty well satisfied myself already, but if we come through this, it will clinch it.’

  ‘What’s the test?’ I asked.

  ‘We’d rather not tell you,’ said Alec, ‘and we haven’t told Doc. either.’

  ‘Right-o,’ I replied. ‘Let’s go and join the Majors. They’re watching the ducks in the lane.’

  Matthews declined the proffered entertainment. Instead, he went off to Little ‘to get things ready’ for the test. I spent an unhappy day wondering what on earth the test could be that requ
ired so much preparation. In the evening a rather larger number than usual gathered round the spook-board. Doc. and I sat down in our usual places.

  ‘Do you want us blindfolded?’ I asked, tendering a handkerchief.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Alec. ‘I don’t believe sight comes into it, anyway. Even if it did, it would not be of any use tonight.’

  ‘It might be more satisfactory, though it is beastly uncomfortable,’ I suggested.

  One of the audience then blindfolded me, but it was carelessly done, and I could still see the ground at my feet and the nearest edge of the spook-board.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Alec asked of the spook-board.

  ‘Yes,’ came the answer.

  ‘This is a test,’ Matthews explained. ‘We want to find out what directs the glass to the letters. Previous tests indicate it is not done by the mediums –’ (I breathed more freely after that, old chap) – ‘but it may be caused by one of the spectators unconsciously exercising a sort of hypnotic influence over the mediums – in short by telepathy. I have prepared a new circle of letters, in triplicate. The original is here, in this room, and will be produced shortly. The duplicate and triplicate are in Little’s room. The triplicate is smaller in size and so constructed as to revolve inside the duplicate. It will be set running by Boyes and Little, who will leave their room before it stops and guard the door. I want to see if the glass can write on the original circle in the code formed by the revolving circle with the duplicate. If it can, it proves that the movement is not controlled, consciously or unconsciously, by any human agency, for nobody knows the code, as there will be nobody in the room when the revolving circle stops.’

  Doc. and I put our fingers back on the glass.

  ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ It wrote at once.

  ‘You’re laughing,’ said Price. ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘Easy,’ said the Spook.

  The new circle of letters prepared by Matthews was substituted for the one I knew so well, and word was sent to Little and Boyes to start the code wheel spinning.

  ‘Can you write on this new arrangement of the letters?’ Matthews asked.

  The glass began to revolve slowly round and round the board.

  ‘It is examining the letters,’ said somebody.

  ‘Yes,’ came the answer from the board. ‘Ask something.’

  ‘Good enough,’ said Matthews. ‘Now write in code. Tell us who you are in code.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘The glass feels quite dead, as if there’s nothing here,’ said the Doc. at last.

  ‘I expect it has gone next door to examine the code,’ said somebody, with a laugh that sounded a trifle forced.

  ‘B-M-X,’ the glass wrote.

  ‘Is that who you are?’

  ‘B-M-X,’ said the glass again.

  ‘Is that your name? It seems very short.’

  ‘B-M-X,’ again.

  ‘Are you writing code?’

  There was another long pause.

  ‘My bandage is slipping,’ said I. ‘Tie it up, someone.’

  ‘Oh, never mind your bandage,’ said Alec. ‘Take it off, it can make no difference.’

  I took it off, and lit a cigarette with my right hand still on the glass.

  ‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘You can’t taste smoke with your eyes shut.’

  ‘You’ve been thinking about smoking instead of keeping your mind blank!’ said the Doc. ‘That’s why it stopped. It’ll go now under normal conditions.’

  ‘Are you writing code?’ Alec repeated.

  ‘B-M-X – B-M-X – B-M-X.’

  ‘That may be the code for “yes”,’ said Price. ‘Go and see, Little.’

  Little went out to examine the code. While he was away the glass kept up a monotonous B-M-X, B-M-X.

  Little came back. ‘Can’t make it out,’ he said; ‘it’s not code for “yes”. B-M-X is V –’

  ‘Don’t tell us what it is,’ Alec interrupted. ‘Come on, what’s your name?’

  Before he got the question out the glass was writing again. A steady string of some thirty to forty unintelligible letters. ‘F-G-F-K-V-H-M-D-O-H-O-M-X-O-F-T-T-O-M-U-D-A-N-M-F-G-U-F-N-V-C-F-K-M-T-M-F-N.’

  ‘Can you repeat all that?’ Price asked.

  The glass repeated it a second and a third time without variation.

  ‘Looks as if we are getting something,’ said Alec. ‘Now please give us a message.’

  The glass replied at considerable length, and again repeated the reply three times over. Thus it went on for the best part of an hour, answering questions in code, and repeating each answer three times.

  ‘I think we’ve got enough to go on with,’ said Price, ‘and anyway, whatever this stuff may be, whether it makes sense or not, we’re up against one thing, and that is, how the deuce can these long rigmaroles of letters be repeated with such accuracy?’

  While Little and Boyes adjourned with the record to see if they could be deciphered, the company discussed the evening’s performance.

  ‘Whatever Little’s verdict may be,’ said the Doc., ‘the sceptics who think I am doing this have had a bit of a jar tonight.’

  ‘How so?’ I asked innocently.

  The Doc. tapped the spook-board with a grimy forefinger.

  ‘This is a new arrangement of the letters,’ he said, ‘which was sprung on me tonight.’

  ‘Well, what about it?’ I asked.

  The Doc. leant across the board and glared at me. ‘What about it? Why, ye cormorant! Who but you accused me the other night of rememberin’ the letters, an’ how can I remember them when I’ve never seen them before? Yet the thing wrote sense! It said, “Yes, ask something,” in plain Sassenach!’

  I looked at the board critically.

  ‘That cock won’t fight, Doc.,’ I said. ‘So far as I can see, this circle looks like a copy of the old one. I remember that combination N-I-F next each other.’

  ‘It’s not quite the same,’ said Alec. ‘I’ve changed a few of the letters.’ He produced the old board and put it alongside the new one. ‘You see the T and the W have changed places, and so have the B and the M. And both the T and the M come into the Spook’s answer to “Ask something”.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Doc., ‘and here’s another change the V and the D.’

  ‘I didn’t change that,’ said Alec quickly.

  ‘But ye did,’ persisted the Doctor. ‘The old one reads from left to right, S D V, and the new one S V D.’

  ‘So it does,’ said Alec; ‘that was an accidental change.’

  ‘Dash it!’ said I. ‘I never spotted that, either.’

  I don’t know why my remark escaped notice, but it did. Somebody suggested we should go on spooking, and I put my fingers on the glass again with a feeling of thankfulness. The glass began to move.

  ‘I know who this is,’ the Doc. said, without opening his eyes. ‘It’s Silas P. Warner.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Price, eyeing Doc. with a growing suspicion. ‘How did you know before I read it out?’

  ‘Why, of all unbelievers,’ said Doc. the Innocent, looking at Price in astonishment; ‘of all the unbelievers! Faith! D’ye think I’m a lump of wood, or what? D’ye think I’ve sat here night after night and hour after hour, fingerin’ this blessed glass, an’ don’t know the difference in feel between one Spook and another?’

  This was new to me – the ‘difference in feel’ was quite unconsciously caused on my part – but it was up to me to support the Doc.

  ‘I’ve noticed that myself,’ I said. ‘Every one of them writes a different way.’

  ‘Of course, what they say is always characteristic,’ said Price. ‘I admit that! But here is Doc. recognizing them not from what they say, but from the way they say it – from the way the glass moves.’

  ‘An’ why not?’ said the Doc. ‘Silas has one way of writing – he’s energetic and slap-bang. An’ Sally has another – she’s world-wise and knowing. But Dorothy! Dorothy that’s always gentle and sweet
! She is the one I like!’

  We were all still laughing and teasing the Doc. when Little came back.

  ‘No good,’ he said, ‘the stuff won’t make sense. I’ve been right through it.’

  Figure 7: ‘It’s all right,’ he gasped breathlessly. ‘The blessed thing has been coding our code!’

  ‘Then we’ve got to explain how It remembered and managed to repeat all that rigmarole,’ said Price.

  ‘Let’s ask Silas,’ Alec suggested, and Doc. and I put our fingers on the glass again.

  Then Boyes burst into the room, waving a sheet of paper. ‘It’s all right,’ he gasped breathlessly. ‘The blessed thing has been coding our code! It’s been writing one letter to the left all the way through, and makes perfect sense. Listen.’ He began reading out the decoded sentences. I looked across at Doc. He was grinning at me – a most aggressive grin! I leant back in my chair and poured myself out a tot of Raki from Alec’s bottle.

  ‘I feel I deserve this,’ I said, raising my mug.

  ‘Bones, ye thief of the world!’ said Doc. ‘Pass that bottle! Ye had no more to do with it than the rest of us.’

  ‘That he had not,’ said Alec. ‘Circulate the poison! Mugs up, you fellows. The thing’s proved, so here’s to the Spook that Doc. says feels the nicest.’

  ‘Dorothy,’ we said, in chorus.

  Chapter IV

  Of The Episode of Louise, and How It Was All Done

  Those who still remained sceptical were completely puzzled. Our success was due, of course, to the cause which makes all spooking mysterious – inaccurate and incomplete observation. In the first place, Alec Matthews had been guilty of a bad slip. He was certain that he had kept the board in his possession and that the mediums could not have seen it. He forgot he had come into Gatherer’s room before the séance, to ask some question about a hockey match, and had carried the new board in his hand. I was sitting in the corner. He stayed in the room, standing near the door, for perhaps fifteen seconds – just enough for me to run my eye round the board. After Alec left Gatherer twitted me on being very silent, and asked if I was ‘homesick’. I was memorizing the new position of the letters.