There Is a River

by Thomas Sugrue

  He appealed to John Blackburn. He felt indebted to him for handling the situation with Layne so tactfully that no unfavorable publicity resulted and no charges were brought. To be relieved of the fear of arrest or disgrace, which had been with him almost constantly while Layne was practicing, was a blessing. But he had to get his voice back.

  Blackburn was not so reluctant as he had supposed. He was curious to experiment, but worried lest he be unable to bring Edgar out of it.

  “Just tell me to wake up,” Edgar said, “and in about a minute it will happen.”

  He wrote out the suggestion to be given for regaining his voice. Then he went to sleep. They were alone in Blackburn’s office.

  When he awakened, Blackburn was standing by the door, pale and trembling.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  Edgar went with him down the stairway and out into the street. They walked rapidly toward the square.

  “You did it,” Blackburn said. “I watched the blood go up into your chest and throat. Then I saw it come back again. As soon as you went to sleep you talked normally. Your voice is all right now. And you woke up when I told you to. I thought all that stuff with Layne might be hooey, but this is no fake. I saw it happen. What’s it all about?”

  “I wish I knew,” Edgar said unhappily. “That’s what worries me. I don’t know what it’s all about.”

  A few days later a letter arrived from Mr. Andrews, the New York man for whom clary water had been prescribed. He had been unable to find it, although he had inquired at all the leading drug houses. He was advertising for it in the medical journals, but in the meantime, why couldn’t Edgar go to sleep and tell him where it could be found or of what ingredients it was composed? Edgar showed the letter to Blackburn.

  “I don’t seem to know what I’m talking about,” he said. “This is what I’ve been afraid of all along. Layne always said he could find anything I prescribed, but here’s proof against me.”

  “Let’s try the experiment and see what we get,” Blackburn said.

  He was over his fear, and more curious than before. Whatever was wrong with Edgar could be discovered, he thought, and explained. It was probably a nerve distortion of some sort and would make an interesting case. He and Beazley had discussed the matter with some of their colleagues: Dr. J. E. Stone, Dr. Fred Reardon, Dr. Fred Cartwright, and Dr. George Meredith. They were thinking of forming a committee to investigate the phenomenon, providing Edgar would cooperate.

  Some of the doctors were present when Blackburn conducted the check reading for Mr. Andrews. When Edgar awakened Blackburn had the formula for clary water written down.

  “Sounds like a powerful tonic,” he said. “Garden sage water is the base. That’s what clary is—garden sage. Then ambergris, dissolved in grain alcohol. Then some gin and some cinnamon.”

  Edgar shook his head. “Lord, what a dose!” he said.

  “It won’t hurt him,” Blackburn said.

  The other doctors nodded. They were interested.

  “Well, send this to Mr. Andrews, and get his report on its effect,” Blackburn said. “I’ll mix some up, too. If it’s really a good tonic—if you can go to sleep and toss off things like that, then we want to find out all we can about it. We’ll investigate it thoroughly, and let you know whether you belong in a circus or an institution, eh, boys?”

  They laughed, and Edgar laughed with them. Whatever happened now, he was being looked after by the right kind of people. They would not allow him to harm others through the readings, and they would not allow the thing, whatever it was, to harm him. They would find out what it was and what should be done with it.

  —

  He visited Layne several times at the Southern School of Osteopathy. He liked the man, and now that the fear of doing something wrong had passed, he enjoyed talking with him. Layne was interested when he heard that the doctors were going to conduct an investigation. He suggested an experiment of his own.

  “We have cases from the clinic which we have to diagnose,” he said. “The professors know what is wrong with these persons. They check on our knowledge by asking us what we think. Why couldn’t we take readings on some of those cases, and see how your diagnosis checks with that of the professors?”

  Edgar was willing. He arranged to come to the school on a weekend when Gertrude was in Hopkinsville, visiting at the Hill. Layne made preparations. He even confided in some of his fellow students and invited them to attend.

  The idea backfired. Layne had been accorded a year’s credit at the school because of his knowledge of anatomy, medicine, and osteopathy, although he had no regular credits for these subjects. The students resented the concession, and when they found out about Edgar they decided to frame Layne and expose him to Dr. Bowling, the head of the school.

  To carry out their plans they enlisted the aid of one of their instructors, a medical doctor named Percy Woodall. A group attended the reading on Saturday, ascertained that the same classroom would be used for the Sunday experiment, and then with Dr. Woodall’s help, lured Dr. Bowling into an adjoining classroom.

  Dr. Bowling was blind, the result of an accident suffered during his student days, but he dissected corpses skillfully, lectured on anatomy, and made osteopathic diagnoses by running the tips of his fingers over the spine. He was generally around the school on Sunday, helping the students in their laboratory work and answering questions. The group of conspirators, led by Dr. Woodall, encountered him in the hall and began asking about a certain case. Dr. Woodall asked him to go into the lecture room to expand on the subject. Then one of the students opened the door leading to the room where Edgar was giving the reading. He had just begun and was speaking in a clear, loud voice. Layne sat beside him. He did not notice when the door behind him opened.

  Dr. Bowling, irritated by the interrupting voice, stopped to listen to it.

  “Who is that in the next room lecturing on anatomy?” he asked. The students said they didn’t know.

  “I want to hear him,” Dr. Bowling said. “Take me in there, Dr. Woodall.”

  They led him in and placed him beside Layne, who turned white at the sight of him. He could not stop Edgar, he knew. The reading, a diagnosis of one of the school’s clinic cases, continued.

  Dr. Bowling waited until Edgar said, “Ready for questions.” Then he asked one. There was no answer.

  “Why doesn’t he answer me?” the doctor said. “Who is this man?”

  Layne repeated the question. Edgar answered it.

  “Who is the other man?” Dr. Bowling asked. “Why doesn’t he answer me instead of him?”

  Miserably Layne made the suggestion that Edgar wake up. Then he tried to explain things. Dr. Bowling listened. When Edgar was awake, he questioned him about his education and medical training.

  “What Mr. Layne says is right,” Edgar said. “I’ve never been to medical school. I never got further than grammar school.”

  “Ridiculous!” Dr. Bowling said. “That was a perfect diagnosis. I know the patient. Furthermore, your anatomy is flawless. Tell me about this business.”

  The students who had engineered the frame-up disappeared. Dr. Woodall and Dr. Bowling heard the story to its end. Getting up to go, Dr. Bowling reached for Edgar’s hand and shook it.

  “Come and see us again,” he said. “This is very interesting. What a marvelous brain yours would be to dissect!”

  Edgar decided not to visit Layne again.

  —

  He was busy with a new idea. Working in a bookstore, he had discovered, was less interesting than taking pictures. Moreover, he didn’t like being separated from Gertrude all day, especially when she had no home to keep and found time heavy on her hands. If he opened a photographic studio of his own she could be with him all day and help him a great deal. Already he had a prospective partner: Frank J. Potter, a distant cousin of Lucian Pott
er, who owned the bookstore. Frank was assistant county clerk, a tall, blond, handsome young man. He was anxious to learn photography and get away from marriage licenses and birth certificates.

  “You two know everyone in town between you,” John Blackburn said. “Why don’t you buy out Harry Cook’s studio over on College Street? I’d even let you take my picture.”

  “A beard like that should only be painted,” Frank said. They were standing in front of the bookstore, soaking up the September sunlight. The mailman came by and handed Edgar a letter.

  It was from Mr. Andrews in New York. He had received a letter from a man in Paris, France. The man had read Mr. Andrews’s advertisement for clary water in a medical journal and was writing to say that he knew it was unavailable, because his father had been its manufacturer. It had not been made or sold now for many years. However, the son had the formula, and would gladly give it to Mr. Andrews so that he could make the tonic himself. A copy of the prescription was enclosed.

  It was identical with the one given by Edgar in his reading. Mr. Andrews was taking the mixture and feeling better.

  Edgar read the letter to Blackburn. The doctor stroked his black beard.

  “Reckon we’d better begin those experiments,” he said.

  NINE

  Well, Blackburn, you’ll have to be Cayce’s Jesus tonight. He’s dead!”

  John Blackburn stood in the doorway of the studio dressing room, taking in the scene before him. On a sofa, in a position similar to the one he usually assumed while giving a reading, lay Edgar. He seemed lifeless. Blood had clotted on his lips.

  Around him stood half a dozen doctors. Two of them, Stone and Reardon, were members of the investigating group. It was one of the others who had spoken.

  Blackburn approached the sofa and looked down at the body.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  A doctor named McCraken answered him.

  “He was like this when I got here. Tom Barnes and Frank Porter came and got me. They said he slumped over and passed out while he was sitting by the stove.”

  Barnes and Porter, two boys who worked in the studio, spoke up from the edge of the group.

  “He was working all day over at the furniture factory,” Barnes said. “He was taking pictures for the factory catalogue.”

  “It was cold over there,” Porter said. “There was no heat. When he got here about six o’clock he was nearly frozen.”

  “He went into the darkroom for a while,” Barnes said, “but it was cold there, too, so he came out and sat by the stove. Pretty soon he just slid off the chair and fell on the floor.”

  “We carried him to the sofa and went to get a doctor,” Porter said. “After Dr. McCraken couldn’t wake him up we got the rest of you.”

  “What did you do?” Blackburn said to McCraken.

  “I tried to pour whisky down his throat but his jaws were locked. I pried them open. That’s where the blood came from. A couple of the lower front teeth broke. I put a damp cloth in his mouth and gave him an injection of morphine. I couldn’t detect any pulse.”

  One of the other doctors spoke up.

  “I gave him an injection of strychnine.”

  Another said, “I gave him some more morphine.”

  They had put hot bricks, wrapped in towels, against his body and placed hot stove lids against the soles of his feet. Still there had been no sign of life.

  Stone and Reardon said that all this had been done before they arrived. They were of the opinion that Edgar had fallen by accident into the kind of sleep he assumed when giving a reading. They thought nothing should have been done until Blackburn arrived, on the chance that he might be able to break the trance by suggestion.

  “The stuff that’s in him would kill him even if he had been all right to start with,” one of the doctors said. “What are you going to do, Blackburn?”

  Blackburn sat down by the sofa and began to talk to Edgar. He suggested that his pulse increase, that his blood circulate normally, that he wake up. Over and over he repeated the admonitions. Nothing happened.

  One by one the other doctors left.

  “He’s done for,” one of them said. “If I ever saw a dead man, he’s it!”

  “Worked himself to death,” another said. “Ever since he and Frank Potter bought this place he’s been at it day and night. Imagine, working all New Year’s Day taking pictures in a cold, deserted factory!”

  “How about the other stuff?” his colleague said. “Blackburn and the boys have been putting him through all sorts of stunts for over a year. You can’t tell me that sort of thing isn’t deleterious.”

  The other nodded.

  “Nice fellow,” he said. “Very good photographer, from what I hear. Wonder what it was that affected his mind like that? They say he knew all sorts of things when he was asleep.”

  “I don’t know, but whatever it was, it’s killed him. Reckon he wasn’t a fake, anyhow.”

  Back in the studio Blackburn continued talking. After half an hour, when all but Stone and Reardon of the others had gone, one of Edgar’s muscles twitched. His pulse became detectable; his breathing became noticeable. With a deep groan, he woke up.

  Pain racked his body. His mouth was full of blood; some of his teeth were gone. The soles of his feet were blistered. His arms were so sore from the hypodermic injections that he could scarcely move them. Blackburn told him what had happened and asked him what to do.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “Let me go back to sleep and see if you can talk it out of me.”

  He put himself to sleep and Blackburn began to talk again. He suggested that normal conditions return to all parts of the body, that healing of the sore spots be speeded and pain be removed, and that whatever poisons were already in the system be thrown off. He had noticed that where the hypodermics had been administered the flesh of the arms was discolored and swollen; the doses had not yet been absorbed. He tried injecting a needle and withdrawing the plunger. Most of the stuff came out.

  Now an hour passed. The pulse again receded; there was no sign of life. Stone and Reardon left.

  “He’s done for,” they said to Blackburn.

  Another hour passed. A muscle twitched. Again the pulse became detectable; breathing became noticeable. Again Edgar woke up.

  “I feel better,” he said. “I think I’m all right.”

  Most of the pain had gone, but he was sore from head to foot. His feet were so swollen he could not tie the laces of his shoes. Blackburn bundled him up and drove him home in his buggy.

  “Fine way to start the year 1906,” Blackburn said. “What happened to you?”

  Edgar said he didn’t know.

  “I was tired and cold, and I hadn’t stopped to eat much. I was sitting by the stove, getting warm, and that’s all I remember.”

  “I wonder,” Blackburn said, “if that crazy mind of yours didn’t put you to sleep because you needed rest? It looks after other people’s health when we ask it to. Why shouldn’t it look after yours?”

  “If it’s going to do tricks like that I wish it would tell me, so I can go to bed and not have all the doctors in town trying to wake me up,” Edgar said.

  “Is Gertrude back from Hopkinsville yet?” Blackburn asked.

  “No,” Edgar said. “She decided to stay for New Year’s and I’m glad of it. She’d have lost ten years of her life if she’d seen this thing tonight. What will she say when she finds my teeth missing?”

  “We’ll tell her you got them knocked out in a saloon fight,” Blackburn said reassuringly. “I’d better stay with you tonight. I don’t want anything else to happen to you after what you’ve been through.”

  They let themselves in and went to bed. In the morning Edgar was awakened by the sound of the front doorbell. A messenger boy handed him a large floral piece. The card, edged in black, began, “Wi
th deepest sympathy . . .”

  —

  The Blackburn brothers, Beazley, and Reardon were all members of a local organization known as the E.Q.B. Literary Club. Casually, without formal organization for any particular scientific purpose, they began to observe Edgar’s readings, intending to record their evidence in the club’s files. They were well aware of the attitude of their profession toward shenanigans of that sort, but they were familiar with such American books as Thomson J. Hudson’s The Law of Psychic Phenomena and knew something about the studies of clairvoyance and somnambulism that had been going on in Europe for more than a century.

  In the eighteenth century, before the discoveries of Mesmer and de Puysegur, a pioneer named Maxwell said, “There is no disease which is not curable by a spirit of life without help of a physician . . . The universal remedy is nothing but the spirit of life increased in a suitable subject.” Mesmer found a means of stimulating this natural healing force and called the process “magnetism.” In 1784 de Puysegur, attempting to magnetize Victor, the shepherd boy, discovered hypnotism: Victor, falling into a deep trance, began to speak and diagnosed the ailment of the person next to him. During the next generation persons with similar sensitiveness were found in France, Germany, and England. They were studied carefully; the best men of science gave them their attention and wrote books about them. Somnambulism became fashionable. People went by preference to a somnambulist rather than to a physician, and the results apparently were as efficacious as they were amazing. The somnambulists seemed infallible in diagnosis, and the remedies they suggested were simple and, according to the evidence, helpful.

  It is not surprising, of course, that people in that time preferred a clairvoyant to a doctor. The medical profession was in a state of dark ignorance. Montaigne, the French essayist, when threatened with a physician, begged that he be allowed to recover his strength, that he might better resist the attack. Somnambulists, on the other hand, seldom prescribed anything violent, and frequently stated that the trouble was psychological and could be corrected by suggestion.