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«Splendid! Any directions for me?»
«Just the special massage as before. But he is going to put on two new spirit batteries if I can stand it.»
«My word, he won't be long now!» Suddenly the girl's eyes lit on Challenger and she stopped in confusion.
«This is Nurse Ursula,» said Miss Delicia. «Nurse, let me present you to the famous Professor Challenger.» Challenger was great in his manner towards women, especially if the particular woman happened to be a young and pretty girl. He advanced now as Solomon may have advanced to the Queen of Sheba, took her hand, and patted her hair with patriarchal assurance.
«My dear, you are far too young and charming for such deceit. Have done with it for ever. Be content to be a bewitching nurse and resign all claim to the higher functions of doctor. Where, may I ask, did you pick up all this jargon about cervical vertebrae and posterior foramina?»
Nurse Ursula looked helplessly round as one who finds herself suddenly in the clutches of a gorilla.
«She does not understand a word you say!» cried the man on the bed. «Oh, chief, you must make an effort to face the real situation! I know what a readjustment it means. In my small way I have had to undergo it myself. But, believe me, you see everything through a prism instead of through plate-glass until you understand the spiritual factor.»
Challenger continued his paternal attentions, though the frightened lady had begun to shrink from him.
«Come now,» said he, «who was the clever doctor with whom you acted as nurse – the man who taught you all these fine words? You must feel that it is hopeless to deceive me. You will be much happier, dear child, when you have made a clean breast of it all, and when we can laugh together over the lecture which you inflicted upon me.»
An unexpected interruption came to check Challenger's exploration of the young woman's conscience or motives. The invalid was sitting up, a vivid red patch against his white pillows, and he was speaking with an energy which was in itself an indication of his coming cure.
«Professor Challenger!» he cried, «you are insulting my best friend. Under this roof at least she shall be safe from the sneers of scientific prejudice. I beg you to leave the room if you cannot address Nurse Ursula in a more respectful manner.»
Challenger glared, but the peacemaking Delicia was at work in a moment.
«You are far too hasty, dear Dr. Ross Scotton!» she cried. «Professor Challenger has had no time to understand this. You were just as sceptical yourself at first. How can you blame him?»
«Yes, yes, that is true,» said the young doctor. «It seemed to me to open the door to all the quackery in the Universe – indeed it does, but the fact remains.»
«' One thing I know that whereas I was blind now I see',» quoted Miss Delicia. «Ah, Professor, you may raise your eyebrows and shrug your shoulders, but we've dropped something into your big mind this afternoon which will grow and grow until no man can see the end of it.» She dived into the bag. «There is a little slip here 'Brain versus Soul'. I do hope, dear Professor, that you will read it and then pass it on.»
15. In Which Traps are Laid for a Great Quarry
16. In Which Challenger has the Experience of his Lifetime
«Just the special massage as before. But he is going to put on two new spirit batteries if I can stand it.»
«My word, he won't be long now!» Suddenly the girl's eyes lit on Challenger and she stopped in confusion.
«This is Nurse Ursula,» said Miss Delicia. «Nurse, let me present you to the famous Professor Challenger.» Challenger was great in his manner towards women, especially if the particular woman happened to be a young and pretty girl. He advanced now as Solomon may have advanced to the Queen of Sheba, took her hand, and patted her hair with patriarchal assurance.
«My dear, you are far too young and charming for such deceit. Have done with it for ever. Be content to be a bewitching nurse and resign all claim to the higher functions of doctor. Where, may I ask, did you pick up all this jargon about cervical vertebrae and posterior foramina?»
Nurse Ursula looked helplessly round as one who finds herself suddenly in the clutches of a gorilla.
«She does not understand a word you say!» cried the man on the bed. «Oh, chief, you must make an effort to face the real situation! I know what a readjustment it means. In my small way I have had to undergo it myself. But, believe me, you see everything through a prism instead of through plate-glass until you understand the spiritual factor.»
Challenger continued his paternal attentions, though the frightened lady had begun to shrink from him.
«Come now,» said he, «who was the clever doctor with whom you acted as nurse – the man who taught you all these fine words? You must feel that it is hopeless to deceive me. You will be much happier, dear child, when you have made a clean breast of it all, and when we can laugh together over the lecture which you inflicted upon me.»
An unexpected interruption came to check Challenger's exploration of the young woman's conscience or motives. The invalid was sitting up, a vivid red patch against his white pillows, and he was speaking with an energy which was in itself an indication of his coming cure.
«Professor Challenger!» he cried, «you are insulting my best friend. Under this roof at least she shall be safe from the sneers of scientific prejudice. I beg you to leave the room if you cannot address Nurse Ursula in a more respectful manner.»
Challenger glared, but the peacemaking Delicia was at work in a moment.
«You are far too hasty, dear Dr. Ross Scotton!» she cried. «Professor Challenger has had no time to understand this. You were just as sceptical yourself at first. How can you blame him?»
«Yes, yes, that is true,» said the young doctor. «It seemed to me to open the door to all the quackery in the Universe – indeed it does, but the fact remains.»
«' One thing I know that whereas I was blind now I see',» quoted Miss Delicia. «Ah, Professor, you may raise your eyebrows and shrug your shoulders, but we've dropped something into your big mind this afternoon which will grow and grow until no man can see the end of it.» She dived into the bag. «There is a little slip here 'Brain versus Soul'. I do hope, dear Professor, that you will read it and then pass it on.»
15. In Which Traps are Laid for a Great Quarry
MALONE was bound in honour not to speak of love to Enid Challenger, but looks can speak, and so their communications had not broken down completely. In all other ways he adhered closely to the agreement, though the situation was a difficult one. It was the more difficult since he was a constant visitor to the Professor, and now that the irritation of the debate was over, a very welcome one. The one object of Malone's life w as to get the great man's sympathetic consideration of those psychic subjects which had gained such a hold upon himself. This he pursued with assiduity, but also with great caution, for he knew that the lava was thin, and that a fiery explosion was always possible. Once or twice it came and caused Malone to drop the subject for a week or two, until the ground seemed a little more firm.
Malone developed a remarkable cunning in his approaches. One favourite device was to consult Challenger upon some scientific point – on the zoological importance of the Straits of Banda, for example, or the Insects of the Malay Archipelago, and lead him on until Challenger in due course would explain that our knowledge on the point was due to Alfred Russel Wallace. «Oh, really! To Wallace the Spiritualist!» Malone would say in an innocent voice, on which Challenger would glare and change the topic.
Sometimes it was Lodge that Malone would use as a trap. «I suppose you think highly of him.»
«The first brain in Europe,» said Challenger.
«He is the greatest authority on ether, is he not?»
«Undoubtedly.»
«Of course, I only know him by his psychic works.»
Challenger would shut up like a clam. Then Malone would wait a few days and remark casually: «Have you ever met Lombroso!»
«Yes, at the Congress at Milan.»
«I have been reading a book of his.»
«Criminology, I presume?»
«No, it was called After Death – What?»
«I have not heard of it.»
«It discusses the psychic question.»
«Ah, a man of Lombroso's penetrating brain would make short work of the fallacies of these charlatans.»
«No, it is written to support them.»
«Well, even the greatest mind has its inexplicable weakness.» Thus, with infinite patience and cunning did Malone drop his little drops of reason in the hope of slowly wearing away the casing of prejudice, but no very visible effects could be seen. Some stronger measure must be adopted, and Malone determined upon direct demonstration. But how, when, and where? Those were the all-important points upon which he determined to consult Algernon Mailey. One spring afternoon found him back in that drawing-room where he had once rolled upon the carpet in the embrace of Silas Linden. He found the Reverend Charles Mason, and Smith, the hero of the Queen's Hall debate, in deep consultation with Mailey upon a subject which may seem much more important to our descendants than those topics which now bulk large in the eyes of the public. It was no less than whether the psychic movement in Britain was destined to take a Unitarian or a Trinitarian course. Smith had always been in favour of the former, as had the old leaders of the movement and the present organized Spiritualist Churches. On the other hand, Charles Mason was a loyal son of the Anglican Church, and was the spokesman of a host of others, including such weighty names as Lodge and Barrett among the laymen, or Wilberforce, Haweis and Chambers among the clergy, who clung fast to the old teachings while admitting the fact of spirit communication. Mailey stood between the two parties, and, like the zealous referee in a boxing-match who separates the two combatants, he always took a chance of getting a knock from each. Malone was only too glad to listen, for now that he realized that the future of the world might be bound up in this movement, every phase of it was of intense interest to him. Mason was holding forth in his earnest but good-humoured way as he entered.
«The people are not ready for a great change. It is not necessary. We have only to add our living knowledge and direct communion of the saints to the splendid liturgy and traditions of the Church, and you will have a driving force which will revitalize all religion. You can't pull a thing up from the roots like that. Even the early Christians found that they could not, and so they made all sorts of concessions to the religions around them.»
«Which was exactly what ruined them,» said Smith.
«That was the real end of the Church in its original strength and purity.»
«It lasted, anyhow.»
«But it was never the same from the time that villain Constantine laid his hands on it.»
«Oh, come!» said Mailey. «You must not write down the first Christian emperor as a villain.»
But Smith was a forthright, uncompromising, bull-doggy antagonist. «What other name will you give to a man who murdered half his own family?»
«Well, his personal character is not the question. We were talking of the organization of the Christian Church.»
«You don't mind my frankness, Mr. Mason?»
Mason smiled his jolly smile. «So long as you grant me the existence of the New Testament I don't care what you do. If you were to prove that our Lord was a myth, as that German Drews tried to do, it would not in the least affect me so long as I could point to that body of sublime teaching. It must have come from somewhere, and I adopt it and say, 'That is my creed'.»
«Oh, well, there is not so much between us on that point,» said Smith. «If there is any better teaching I have not seen it. It is good enough to go on with, anyhow. But we want to cut out the frills and superfluities. Where did they all come from? They were compromises with many religions, so that our friend C. could get uniformity in his world-wide Empire. He made a patchwork quilt of it. He took an Egyptian ritual – vestments, mitre, crozier, tonsure, marriage ring – all Egyptian. The Easter ceremonies are pagan and refer to the vernal equinox. Confirmation is mithraism. So is baptism, only it was blood instead of water. As to the sacrificial meal . . .»
Mason put his fingers in his ears. «This is some old lecture of yours,» he laughed. «Hire a hall, but don't obtrude it in a private house. But, seriously, Smith, all this is beside the question. If it is true it will not affect my position at all, which is that we have a great body of doctrine which is working well, and which is regarded with veneration by many people, your humble servant included, and that it would be wrong and foolish to scrap it. Surely you must agree.»
«No, I don't,» Smith answered, setting his obstinate jaw. «You are thinking too much of the feelings of your blessed church-goers. But you have also to think of the nine people out of ten who never enter into a church. They have been choked off by what they, including your humble servant, consider to be unreasonable and fantastic. How will you gain them while you continue to offer them the same things, even though you mix spirit-teaching with it? If, however, you approach these agnostic or atheistic ones, and say to them: 'I quite agree that all this is unreal and is tainted by a long history of violence and reaction. But here we have something pure and new. Come and examine it!' In that way I could coax them back into a belief in God and in all the fundamentals of religion without their having to do violence to their reason by accepting your theology.»
Mailey had been tugging at his tawny beard while he listened to these conflicting counsels. Knowing the two men he was aware that there was not really much between them, when one got past mere words, for Smith revered the Christ as a God-like man, and Mason as a man-like God, and the upshot was much the same. At the same time he knew that their more extreme followers on either side were in very truth widely separated, so that compromise became impossible.
«What I can't understand,» said Malone, «is why you don't ask your spirit friends these questions and abide by their decisions.»
«It is not so simple as you think,» Mailey answered. «We all carry on our earthly prejudices after death, and we all find ourselves in an atmosphere which more or less represents them. Thus each would echo his old views at first. Then in time the spirit broadens out and it ends in a universal creed which includes only the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. But that takes time. I have heard most furious bigots talking through the veil.»
«So have I, for that matter,» said Malone, «and in this very room. But what about the materialists? They at least cannot remain unchanged.»
«I believe their mind influences their state and that they lie inert for ages sometimes, under their own obsession that nothing can occur. Then at last they wake, realize their own loss of time, and finally, in many cases, get to the head of the procession, since they are often men of fine character and influenced by lofty motives however mistaken in their views.»
«Yes, they are often among the salt of the earth,» said the clergyman heartily.
«And they offer the very best recruits for our movement,» said Smith. «There comes such a reaction when they find by the evidence of their own senses that there really is intelligent force outside themselves, that it gives them an enthusiasm that makes them ideal missionaries. You fellows who have a religion and then add to it cannot even imagine what it means to the man who has a complete vacuum and suddenly; finds something to fill it. When I meet some poor earnest chap feeling out into the darkness I just yearn to put it into his hand.»
At this stage, tea and Mrs. Mailey appeared together. But the conversation did not flag. It is one of the characteristics of those who explore psychic possibilities that the subject is so many-sided and the interest so intense that when they meet together they plunge into the most fascinating exchange of views and experiences. It was with some difficulty that Malone got the conversation round to that which had been the particular object of his visit. He could have found no group of men more fit to advise him, and all were equally keen that so great a man as Challenger should have the best available.
Where should it be? On that they were unanimous. The large seance room of the Psychic College was the most select, the most comfortable, in every way the best appointed in London. When should it be? The sooner the better. Every spiritualist and every medium would surely put any engagement aside in order to help on such an occasion.
«Who should the medium be? Ah! There was the rub. Of course, the Bolsover circle would be ideal. It was private and unpaid, but Bolsover was a man of quick temper and Challenger was sure to be very insulting and annoying. The meeting might end in riot and fiasco. Such a chance should not be taken. Was it worth while to take him over to Paris? But who would take the responsibility of letting loose such a bull in Dr. Maupuis' china-shop?
«He would probably seize pithecanthropus by the throat and risk every life in the room,» said Mailey. «No, no, it would never do.»
«There is no doubt that Banderby is the strongest physical medium in England,» said Smith. «But we all know what his personal character is. You could not rely upon him.»
«Why not?» asked Malone. «What's the matter with him?»
Smith raised his hand to his lips.
«He has gone the way that many a medium has gone before him.»
«But surely,» said Malone, «that is a strong argument against our cause. How can a thing be good if it leads to such a result?»
«Do you consider poetry to be good?»
«Why, of course I do!»
«Yet Poe was a drunkard, and Coleridge an addict, and Byron a rake, and Verlaine a degenerate. You have to separate the man from the thing. The genius has to pay a ransom for his genius in the instability of his temperament. A great medium is even more sensitive than a genius. Many are beautiful in their lives. Some are not. The excuse for them is great. They practise a most exhausting profession and stimulants are needed. Then they lose control. But their physical mediumship carries on all the same.»
«Which reminds me of a story about Banderby,» said Mailey. «Perhaps you have not seen him, Malone. He is a funny figure at any time – a little, round, bouncing man who has not seen his own toes for years. When drunk he is funnier still. A few weeks ago I got an urgent message that he was in the bar of a certain hotel, and too far gone to get home unassisted. A friend and I set forth to rescue him. We got him home after some unsavoury adventures, and what would the man do but insist upon holding a seance. We tried to restrain him, but the trumpet was on a side-table, and he suddenly switched off the light. In an instant the phenomena began. Never were they more powerful. But they were interrupted by Princeps, his control, who seized the trumpet and began belabouring him with it. 'You rascal! You drunken rascal! How dare you!' The trumpet was all dinted with the blows. Banderby ran bellowing out of the room, and we took our departure.»
«Well, it wasn't the medium that time, at any rate,» said Mason. «But about Professor Challenger – it would never do to risk the chance.»
«What about Tom Linden?» asked Mrs. Mailey. Mailey shook his head.
«Tom has never been quite the same since his imprisonment. These fools not only persecute our precious mediums, but they ruin their powers. It is like putting a razor into a damp place and then expecting it to have a fine edge.»
«What! Has he lost his powers?»
«Well, I would not go so far as that. But they are not so good as they were. He sees a disguised policeman in every sitter and it distracts him. Still, he is dependable so far as he goes. Yes, on the whole we had better have Tom.»
«And the sitters?»
«I expect Professor Challenger may wish to bring a friend or two of his own.»
«They will form a horrible block of vibrations! We must have some of our own sympathetic people to counteract it. There is Delicia Freeman. She would come. I could come myself. You would come, Mason?»
«Of course I would.»
«And you, Smith?»
«No, no! I have my paper to look after, three services, two burials, one marriage, and five meetings all next week.»
«Well, we can easily get one or two more. Eight is Linden's favourite number. So now, Malone, you have only to get the great man's consent and the date.»
«And the spirit of confirmation,» said Mason, seriously. «We must take our partners into consultation.»
«Of course we must, padre. That is the right note to strike. Well, that's settled, Malone, and we can only await the event.»
As it chanced, a very different event was awaiting Malone that evening, and he came upon one of those chasms which unexpectedly open across the path of life. When, in his ordinary routine, he reached the office of the Gazette, he was informed by the commissionaire that Mr. Beaumont desired to see him. Malone's immediate superior was the old Scotch sub-editor, Mr. McArdle, and it was rare indeed for the supreme editor to cast a glimpse down from that peak whence he surveyed the kingdoms of the world, or to show any cognizance of his humble fellow-workers upon the slopes beneath him. The great man, clean-shaven, prosperous and capable, sat in his palatial sanctum amid a rich assortment of old oak furniture and sealing-wax-red leather. He continued his letter when Malone entered, and only raised his shrewd, grey eyes after some minutes' interval.
«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.»
Malone developed a remarkable cunning in his approaches. One favourite device was to consult Challenger upon some scientific point – on the zoological importance of the Straits of Banda, for example, or the Insects of the Malay Archipelago, and lead him on until Challenger in due course would explain that our knowledge on the point was due to Alfred Russel Wallace. «Oh, really! To Wallace the Spiritualist!» Malone would say in an innocent voice, on which Challenger would glare and change the topic.
Sometimes it was Lodge that Malone would use as a trap. «I suppose you think highly of him.»
«The first brain in Europe,» said Challenger.
«He is the greatest authority on ether, is he not?»
«Undoubtedly.»
«Of course, I only know him by his psychic works.»
Challenger would shut up like a clam. Then Malone would wait a few days and remark casually: «Have you ever met Lombroso!»
«Yes, at the Congress at Milan.»
«I have been reading a book of his.»
«Criminology, I presume?»
«No, it was called After Death – What?»
«I have not heard of it.»
«It discusses the psychic question.»
«Ah, a man of Lombroso's penetrating brain would make short work of the fallacies of these charlatans.»
«No, it is written to support them.»
«Well, even the greatest mind has its inexplicable weakness.» Thus, with infinite patience and cunning did Malone drop his little drops of reason in the hope of slowly wearing away the casing of prejudice, but no very visible effects could be seen. Some stronger measure must be adopted, and Malone determined upon direct demonstration. But how, when, and where? Those were the all-important points upon which he determined to consult Algernon Mailey. One spring afternoon found him back in that drawing-room where he had once rolled upon the carpet in the embrace of Silas Linden. He found the Reverend Charles Mason, and Smith, the hero of the Queen's Hall debate, in deep consultation with Mailey upon a subject which may seem much more important to our descendants than those topics which now bulk large in the eyes of the public. It was no less than whether the psychic movement in Britain was destined to take a Unitarian or a Trinitarian course. Smith had always been in favour of the former, as had the old leaders of the movement and the present organized Spiritualist Churches. On the other hand, Charles Mason was a loyal son of the Anglican Church, and was the spokesman of a host of others, including such weighty names as Lodge and Barrett among the laymen, or Wilberforce, Haweis and Chambers among the clergy, who clung fast to the old teachings while admitting the fact of spirit communication. Mailey stood between the two parties, and, like the zealous referee in a boxing-match who separates the two combatants, he always took a chance of getting a knock from each. Malone was only too glad to listen, for now that he realized that the future of the world might be bound up in this movement, every phase of it was of intense interest to him. Mason was holding forth in his earnest but good-humoured way as he entered.
«The people are not ready for a great change. It is not necessary. We have only to add our living knowledge and direct communion of the saints to the splendid liturgy and traditions of the Church, and you will have a driving force which will revitalize all religion. You can't pull a thing up from the roots like that. Even the early Christians found that they could not, and so they made all sorts of concessions to the religions around them.»
«Which was exactly what ruined them,» said Smith.
«That was the real end of the Church in its original strength and purity.»
«It lasted, anyhow.»
«But it was never the same from the time that villain Constantine laid his hands on it.»
«Oh, come!» said Mailey. «You must not write down the first Christian emperor as a villain.»
But Smith was a forthright, uncompromising, bull-doggy antagonist. «What other name will you give to a man who murdered half his own family?»
«Well, his personal character is not the question. We were talking of the organization of the Christian Church.»
«You don't mind my frankness, Mr. Mason?»
Mason smiled his jolly smile. «So long as you grant me the existence of the New Testament I don't care what you do. If you were to prove that our Lord was a myth, as that German Drews tried to do, it would not in the least affect me so long as I could point to that body of sublime teaching. It must have come from somewhere, and I adopt it and say, 'That is my creed'.»
«Oh, well, there is not so much between us on that point,» said Smith. «If there is any better teaching I have not seen it. It is good enough to go on with, anyhow. But we want to cut out the frills and superfluities. Where did they all come from? They were compromises with many religions, so that our friend C. could get uniformity in his world-wide Empire. He made a patchwork quilt of it. He took an Egyptian ritual – vestments, mitre, crozier, tonsure, marriage ring – all Egyptian. The Easter ceremonies are pagan and refer to the vernal equinox. Confirmation is mithraism. So is baptism, only it was blood instead of water. As to the sacrificial meal . . .»
Mason put his fingers in his ears. «This is some old lecture of yours,» he laughed. «Hire a hall, but don't obtrude it in a private house. But, seriously, Smith, all this is beside the question. If it is true it will not affect my position at all, which is that we have a great body of doctrine which is working well, and which is regarded with veneration by many people, your humble servant included, and that it would be wrong and foolish to scrap it. Surely you must agree.»
«No, I don't,» Smith answered, setting his obstinate jaw. «You are thinking too much of the feelings of your blessed church-goers. But you have also to think of the nine people out of ten who never enter into a church. They have been choked off by what they, including your humble servant, consider to be unreasonable and fantastic. How will you gain them while you continue to offer them the same things, even though you mix spirit-teaching with it? If, however, you approach these agnostic or atheistic ones, and say to them: 'I quite agree that all this is unreal and is tainted by a long history of violence and reaction. But here we have something pure and new. Come and examine it!' In that way I could coax them back into a belief in God and in all the fundamentals of religion without their having to do violence to their reason by accepting your theology.»
Mailey had been tugging at his tawny beard while he listened to these conflicting counsels. Knowing the two men he was aware that there was not really much between them, when one got past mere words, for Smith revered the Christ as a God-like man, and Mason as a man-like God, and the upshot was much the same. At the same time he knew that their more extreme followers on either side were in very truth widely separated, so that compromise became impossible.
«What I can't understand,» said Malone, «is why you don't ask your spirit friends these questions and abide by their decisions.»
«It is not so simple as you think,» Mailey answered. «We all carry on our earthly prejudices after death, and we all find ourselves in an atmosphere which more or less represents them. Thus each would echo his old views at first. Then in time the spirit broadens out and it ends in a universal creed which includes only the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. But that takes time. I have heard most furious bigots talking through the veil.»
«So have I, for that matter,» said Malone, «and in this very room. But what about the materialists? They at least cannot remain unchanged.»
«I believe their mind influences their state and that they lie inert for ages sometimes, under their own obsession that nothing can occur. Then at last they wake, realize their own loss of time, and finally, in many cases, get to the head of the procession, since they are often men of fine character and influenced by lofty motives however mistaken in their views.»
«Yes, they are often among the salt of the earth,» said the clergyman heartily.
«And they offer the very best recruits for our movement,» said Smith. «There comes such a reaction when they find by the evidence of their own senses that there really is intelligent force outside themselves, that it gives them an enthusiasm that makes them ideal missionaries. You fellows who have a religion and then add to it cannot even imagine what it means to the man who has a complete vacuum and suddenly; finds something to fill it. When I meet some poor earnest chap feeling out into the darkness I just yearn to put it into his hand.»
At this stage, tea and Mrs. Mailey appeared together. But the conversation did not flag. It is one of the characteristics of those who explore psychic possibilities that the subject is so many-sided and the interest so intense that when they meet together they plunge into the most fascinating exchange of views and experiences. It was with some difficulty that Malone got the conversation round to that which had been the particular object of his visit. He could have found no group of men more fit to advise him, and all were equally keen that so great a man as Challenger should have the best available.
Where should it be? On that they were unanimous. The large seance room of the Psychic College was the most select, the most comfortable, in every way the best appointed in London. When should it be? The sooner the better. Every spiritualist and every medium would surely put any engagement aside in order to help on such an occasion.
«Who should the medium be? Ah! There was the rub. Of course, the Bolsover circle would be ideal. It was private and unpaid, but Bolsover was a man of quick temper and Challenger was sure to be very insulting and annoying. The meeting might end in riot and fiasco. Such a chance should not be taken. Was it worth while to take him over to Paris? But who would take the responsibility of letting loose such a bull in Dr. Maupuis' china-shop?
«He would probably seize pithecanthropus by the throat and risk every life in the room,» said Mailey. «No, no, it would never do.»
«There is no doubt that Banderby is the strongest physical medium in England,» said Smith. «But we all know what his personal character is. You could not rely upon him.»
«Why not?» asked Malone. «What's the matter with him?»
Smith raised his hand to his lips.
«He has gone the way that many a medium has gone before him.»
«But surely,» said Malone, «that is a strong argument against our cause. How can a thing be good if it leads to such a result?»
«Do you consider poetry to be good?»
«Why, of course I do!»
«Yet Poe was a drunkard, and Coleridge an addict, and Byron a rake, and Verlaine a degenerate. You have to separate the man from the thing. The genius has to pay a ransom for his genius in the instability of his temperament. A great medium is even more sensitive than a genius. Many are beautiful in their lives. Some are not. The excuse for them is great. They practise a most exhausting profession and stimulants are needed. Then they lose control. But their physical mediumship carries on all the same.»
«Which reminds me of a story about Banderby,» said Mailey. «Perhaps you have not seen him, Malone. He is a funny figure at any time – a little, round, bouncing man who has not seen his own toes for years. When drunk he is funnier still. A few weeks ago I got an urgent message that he was in the bar of a certain hotel, and too far gone to get home unassisted. A friend and I set forth to rescue him. We got him home after some unsavoury adventures, and what would the man do but insist upon holding a seance. We tried to restrain him, but the trumpet was on a side-table, and he suddenly switched off the light. In an instant the phenomena began. Never were they more powerful. But they were interrupted by Princeps, his control, who seized the trumpet and began belabouring him with it. 'You rascal! You drunken rascal! How dare you!' The trumpet was all dinted with the blows. Banderby ran bellowing out of the room, and we took our departure.»
«Well, it wasn't the medium that time, at any rate,» said Mason. «But about Professor Challenger – it would never do to risk the chance.»
«What about Tom Linden?» asked Mrs. Mailey. Mailey shook his head.
«Tom has never been quite the same since his imprisonment. These fools not only persecute our precious mediums, but they ruin their powers. It is like putting a razor into a damp place and then expecting it to have a fine edge.»
«What! Has he lost his powers?»
«Well, I would not go so far as that. But they are not so good as they were. He sees a disguised policeman in every sitter and it distracts him. Still, he is dependable so far as he goes. Yes, on the whole we had better have Tom.»
«And the sitters?»
«I expect Professor Challenger may wish to bring a friend or two of his own.»
«They will form a horrible block of vibrations! We must have some of our own sympathetic people to counteract it. There is Delicia Freeman. She would come. I could come myself. You would come, Mason?»
«Of course I would.»
«And you, Smith?»
«No, no! I have my paper to look after, three services, two burials, one marriage, and five meetings all next week.»
«Well, we can easily get one or two more. Eight is Linden's favourite number. So now, Malone, you have only to get the great man's consent and the date.»
«And the spirit of confirmation,» said Mason, seriously. «We must take our partners into consultation.»
«Of course we must, padre. That is the right note to strike. Well, that's settled, Malone, and we can only await the event.»
As it chanced, a very different event was awaiting Malone that evening, and he came upon one of those chasms which unexpectedly open across the path of life. When, in his ordinary routine, he reached the office of the Gazette, he was informed by the commissionaire that Mr. Beaumont desired to see him. Malone's immediate superior was the old Scotch sub-editor, Mr. McArdle, and it was rare indeed for the supreme editor to cast a glimpse down from that peak whence he surveyed the kingdoms of the world, or to show any cognizance of his humble fellow-workers upon the slopes beneath him. The great man, clean-shaven, prosperous and capable, sat in his palatial sanctum amid a rich assortment of old oak furniture and sealing-wax-red leather. He continued his letter when Malone entered, and only raised his shrewd, grey eyes after some minutes' interval.
«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 Lifetime
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 realize 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 force.»
«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.
When they had recovered their sight and their balance, the spectacle was a deplorable one for the majority of the company. Tom Linden, looking white, dazed, and ill, was seated upon the ground. Over him stood the huge young Scotsman who had borne him to earth; while Mrs. Linden, kneeling beside her husband, was glaring up at his assailant. There was a silence as the company surveyed the scene. It was broken by Professor Challenger.
«Well, gentlemen, I presume that there is no more to be said. Your medium has been exposed as he deserved to be. You can see now the nature of your ghosts. I must thank Mr Nicholl, who, I may remark, is the famous football player of that name, for the prompt way in which he has carried out his instructions.»
«I collared him low,» said the tall youth. «He was easy.»
«You did it very effectively. You have done public service by helping to expose a heartless cheat. I need not say that a prosecution will follow.»
But Mailey now intervened and with such authority that Challenger was forced to listen.
«Your mistake is not unnatural, sir, though the course which you adopted in your ignorance is one which might well have been fatal to the medium.»
«My ignorance indeed! If you speak like that I warn you that I will look upon you not as dupes, but as accomplices. «
«One moment, Professor Challenger. I would ask you one direct question, and I ask for an equally direct reply. Was not the figure which we all saw before this painful episode a white figure?»
«Yes, it was.»
«You see now that the medium is entirely dressed in black. Where is the white garment?»
«It is immaterial to me where it is. No doubt his wife and himself are prepared for all eventualities. They have their own means of secreting the sheet, or whatever ii may have been. These details can be explained in the police court.»
«Examine now. Search the room for anything white.»
«I know nothing of the room. I can only use my common sense. The man is exposed masquerading as a spirit. Into what corner or crevice he has thrust his disguise is a matter of small importance.»
«On the contrary, it is a vital matter. What you have seen has not been an imposture, but has been a very real phenomenon.»
Challenger laughed.
«Yes, sir, a very real phenomenon. You have seen a transfiguration which is the half-way state of materialization. You will kindly realize that spirit guides, who conduct such affairs, care nothing for your doubts and suspicions. They set themselves to get certain results, and if they are prevented by the infirmities of the circle from getting them one way they get them in another, without consulting your prejudice or convenience. In this case being unable, owing to the evil conditions which you have yourself created, to build up an ectoplasmic form they wrapped the unconscious medium in an ectoplasmic covering, and sent him forth from the cabinet. He is as innocent of imposture as you are.»
«I swear to God,» said Linden, «that from the time I entered the cabinet until I found myself upon the floor I knew nothing.» He had staggered to his feet and was shaking all over in his agitation, so that he could not hold the glass of water which his wife had brought him.
Challenger shrugged his shoulders.
«Your excuses,» he said, «only open up fresh abysses of credulity. My own duty is obvious, and it will be done to the uttermost. Whatever you have to say will, no doubt, receive such consideration as it deserves from the magistrate.» Then Professor Challenger turned to go as one who has triumphantly accomplished that for which he came. «Come, Enid!» said he.
And now occurred a development so sudden, so unexpected, so dramatic, that no one present will ever cease to have it in vivid memory.
No answer was returned to Challenger's call. Everyone else had risen to their feet. Only Enid remained in her chair. She sat with her head on one shoulder, her eyes closed, her hair partly loosened – a model for a sculptor.
«She is asleep,» said Challenger. «Wake up, Enid. I am going.»
There was no response from the girl. Mailey was bending over her.
«Hush! Don't disturb her! She is in trance.»
Challenger rushed forward. «What have you done? Your infernal hankey-pankey has frightened her. She has fainted.»
Mailey had raised her eyelid.
«No, no, her eyes are turned up. She is in trance. Your daughter, sir, is a powerful medium.»
«A medium! You are raving. Wake up girl,! wake up!»
«For God's sake leave her! You may regret it all your life if you don't. It is not safe to break abruptly into the mediumistic trance.»
Challenger stood in bewilderment. For once his presence of mind had deserted him. Was it possible that his child stood on the edge of some mysterious precipice and that he might push her over?
«What shall I do?» he asked helplessly.
«Have no fear. All will be well. Sit down! Sit down, all of you. Ah! she is about to speak.»
The girl had stirred. She had sat straight in her chair. Her lips trembled. One hand was outstretched:
«For him!» she cried, pointing to Challenger. «He must not hurt my Medi. It is a message. For him.»
There was breathless silence among the persons who had gathered round the girl.
«Who speaks?» asked Mailey.
«Victor speaks. Victor. He shall not hurt my Medi. I have a message. For him!»
«Yes, yes. What is the message?»
«His wife is here.»
«Yes!»
«She says that she has been once before. That she came through this girl. It was after she was cremated. She knock and he hear her knocking, but not understand.»
«Does this mean anything to you, Professor Challenger?»
His great eyebrows were bunched over his suspicious, questioning eyes, and he glared like a beast at bay from one to the other of the faces round him. There was a trick – a vile trick. They had suborned his own daughter. It was damnable. He would expose them, every one. No, he had no questions to ask. He could see through it all. She had been won over. He could not have believed it of her, and yet it must be so. She was doing it for Malone's sake. A woman would do anything for a man she loved. Yes, it was damnable. Far from being softened he was more vindictive than ever. His furious face, his broken words, expressed his convictions.
Again the girl's arm shot out, pointing in front of her.
«Another message!»
«To whom?»
«To him. The man who wanted to hurt my Medi. He must not hurt my Medi. A man here – two men – wish to give him a message.»
«Yes, Victor, let us have it.»
«First man's name is . . .» The girl's head slanted and her ear was upturned, as if listening. « Yes, yes, I have it! It is Al-Al-Aldridge.»
«Does that mean anything to you?»
Challenger staggered. A look of absolute wonder had come upon his face.
«What is the second man?» he asked.
«Ware. Yes that is it. Ware.»
Challenger sat down suddenly. He passed his hand over his brow. He was deadly pale. His face was clammy with sweat.
«Do you know them?»
«I knew two men of those names.»
«They have message for you,» said the girl.
Challenger seemed to brace himself for a blow.
«Well, what is it?»
«Too private. Not speak, all these people here.»
«We shall wait outside,» said Mailey. «Come, friends, let the Professor have his message.»
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 realize 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 force.»
«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.
When they had recovered their sight and their balance, the spectacle was a deplorable one for the majority of the company. Tom Linden, looking white, dazed, and ill, was seated upon the ground. Over him stood the huge young Scotsman who had borne him to earth; while Mrs. Linden, kneeling beside her husband, was glaring up at his assailant. There was a silence as the company surveyed the scene. It was broken by Professor Challenger.
«Well, gentlemen, I presume that there is no more to be said. Your medium has been exposed as he deserved to be. You can see now the nature of your ghosts. I must thank Mr Nicholl, who, I may remark, is the famous football player of that name, for the prompt way in which he has carried out his instructions.»
«I collared him low,» said the tall youth. «He was easy.»
«You did it very effectively. You have done public service by helping to expose a heartless cheat. I need not say that a prosecution will follow.»
But Mailey now intervened and with such authority that Challenger was forced to listen.
«Your mistake is not unnatural, sir, though the course which you adopted in your ignorance is one which might well have been fatal to the medium.»
«My ignorance indeed! If you speak like that I warn you that I will look upon you not as dupes, but as accomplices. «
«One moment, Professor Challenger. I would ask you one direct question, and I ask for an equally direct reply. Was not the figure which we all saw before this painful episode a white figure?»
«Yes, it was.»
«You see now that the medium is entirely dressed in black. Where is the white garment?»
«It is immaterial to me where it is. No doubt his wife and himself are prepared for all eventualities. They have their own means of secreting the sheet, or whatever ii may have been. These details can be explained in the police court.»
«Examine now. Search the room for anything white.»
«I know nothing of the room. I can only use my common sense. The man is exposed masquerading as a spirit. Into what corner or crevice he has thrust his disguise is a matter of small importance.»
«On the contrary, it is a vital matter. What you have seen has not been an imposture, but has been a very real phenomenon.»
Challenger laughed.
«Yes, sir, a very real phenomenon. You have seen a transfiguration which is the half-way state of materialization. You will kindly realize that spirit guides, who conduct such affairs, care nothing for your doubts and suspicions. They set themselves to get certain results, and if they are prevented by the infirmities of the circle from getting them one way they get them in another, without consulting your prejudice or convenience. In this case being unable, owing to the evil conditions which you have yourself created, to build up an ectoplasmic form they wrapped the unconscious medium in an ectoplasmic covering, and sent him forth from the cabinet. He is as innocent of imposture as you are.»
«I swear to God,» said Linden, «that from the time I entered the cabinet until I found myself upon the floor I knew nothing.» He had staggered to his feet and was shaking all over in his agitation, so that he could not hold the glass of water which his wife had brought him.
Challenger shrugged his shoulders.
«Your excuses,» he said, «only open up fresh abysses of credulity. My own duty is obvious, and it will be done to the uttermost. Whatever you have to say will, no doubt, receive such consideration as it deserves from the magistrate.» Then Professor Challenger turned to go as one who has triumphantly accomplished that for which he came. «Come, Enid!» said he.
And now occurred a development so sudden, so unexpected, so dramatic, that no one present will ever cease to have it in vivid memory.
No answer was returned to Challenger's call. Everyone else had risen to their feet. Only Enid remained in her chair. She sat with her head on one shoulder, her eyes closed, her hair partly loosened – a model for a sculptor.
«She is asleep,» said Challenger. «Wake up, Enid. I am going.»
There was no response from the girl. Mailey was bending over her.
«Hush! Don't disturb her! She is in trance.»
Challenger rushed forward. «What have you done? Your infernal hankey-pankey has frightened her. She has fainted.»
Mailey had raised her eyelid.
«No, no, her eyes are turned up. She is in trance. Your daughter, sir, is a powerful medium.»
«A medium! You are raving. Wake up girl,! wake up!»
«For God's sake leave her! You may regret it all your life if you don't. It is not safe to break abruptly into the mediumistic trance.»
Challenger stood in bewilderment. For once his presence of mind had deserted him. Was it possible that his child stood on the edge of some mysterious precipice and that he might push her over?
«What shall I do?» he asked helplessly.
«Have no fear. All will be well. Sit down! Sit down, all of you. Ah! she is about to speak.»
The girl had stirred. She had sat straight in her chair. Her lips trembled. One hand was outstretched:
«For him!» she cried, pointing to Challenger. «He must not hurt my Medi. It is a message. For him.»
There was breathless silence among the persons who had gathered round the girl.
«Who speaks?» asked Mailey.
«Victor speaks. Victor. He shall not hurt my Medi. I have a message. For him!»
«Yes, yes. What is the message?»
«His wife is here.»
«Yes!»
«She says that she has been once before. That she came through this girl. It was after she was cremated. She knock and he hear her knocking, but not understand.»
«Does this mean anything to you, Professor Challenger?»
His great eyebrows were bunched over his suspicious, questioning eyes, and he glared like a beast at bay from one to the other of the faces round him. There was a trick – a vile trick. They had suborned his own daughter. It was damnable. He would expose them, every one. No, he had no questions to ask. He could see through it all. She had been won over. He could not have believed it of her, and yet it must be so. She was doing it for Malone's sake. A woman would do anything for a man she loved. Yes, it was damnable. Far from being softened he was more vindictive than ever. His furious face, his broken words, expressed his convictions.
Again the girl's arm shot out, pointing in front of her.
«Another message!»
«To whom?»
«To him. The man who wanted to hurt my Medi. He must not hurt my Medi. A man here – two men – wish to give him a message.»
«Yes, Victor, let us have it.»
«First man's name is . . .» The girl's head slanted and her ear was upturned, as if listening. « Yes, yes, I have it! It is Al-Al-Aldridge.»
«Does that mean anything to you?»
Challenger staggered. A look of absolute wonder had come upon his face.
«What is the second man?» he asked.
«Ware. Yes that is it. Ware.»
Challenger sat down suddenly. He passed his hand over his brow. He was deadly pale. His face was clammy with sweat.
«Do you know them?»
«I knew two men of those names.»
«They have message for you,» said the girl.
Challenger seemed to brace himself for a blow.
«Well, what is it?»
«Too private. Not speak, all these people here.»
«We shall wait outside,» said Mailey. «Come, friends, let the Professor have his message.»