# The Land of Mist

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1930, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 93 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
The Land of Mist
By A. CONAN DOYLE
AUTHOR OF
“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” “Danger, and Other Stories,” “The Lost World,” “Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes,” “Tales of Sherlock Holmes,” “The Valley of Fear,” etc.
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Published by arrangement with George H. Doran Company
Printed in U. S. A.
COPYRIGHT, 1926,
BY A. CONAN DOYLE
THE LAND OF MIST
—Q—
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO THE
REVEREND GEORGE VALE OWEN
AS A TOKEN OF
SYMPATHY, ADMIRATION, AND FRIENDSHIP
JANUARY, 1926
CONTENTS
THE LAND OF MIST
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONERS MAKE A START
THE great Professor Challenger has been — very improperly and imperfectly — used in fiction. A daring author placed him in impossible and romantic situations in order to see how he would react to them. He reacted to the extent of a libel action, an abortive appeal for suppression, a riot in Sloane Street, two personal assaults, and the loss of his position as lecturer upon Physiology at the London School of Sub-Tropical Hygiene. Otherwise, the matter passed more peaceably than might have been expected.
But he was losing something of his fire. Those huge shoulders were a little bowed. The spade-shaped Assyrian beard showed tangles of grey amid the black, his eyes were a trifle less aggressive, his smile less self-complacent, his voice as monstrous as ever but less ready to roar down all opposition. Yet he was dangerous, as all around him were painfully aware. The volcano was not extinct, and constant rumblings threatened some new explosion. Life had much yet to teach him, but he was a little less intolerant in learning.
There was a definite date for the change which ​had been wrought in him. It was the death of his wife. That little bird of a woman had made her nest in the big man’s heart. He had all the tenderness and chivalry which the strong can have for the weak. By yielding everything she had won everything, as a sweet-natured, tactful woman can. And when she died suddenly from virulent pneumonia following influenza, the man staggered and went down. He came up again, smiling ruefully like the stricken boxer, and ready to carry on for many a round with Fate. But he was not the same man, and if it had not been for the help and comradeship of his daughter Enid, he might never have rallied from the blow. She it was who, with clever craft, lured him into every subject which would excite his combative nature and infuriate his mind, until he lived once more in the present and not the past. It was only when she saw him turbulent in controversy, violent to pressmen, and generally offensive to those around him, that she felt he was really in a fair way to recovery.
Enid Challenger was a remarkable girl and should have a paragraph to herself. With the raven-black hair of her father, and the blue eyes and fresh colour of her mother, she was striking, if not beautiful, in appearance. She was quiet, but she was very strong. From her infancy she had either to take her own part against her father, or else to consent to be crushed and to become a mere automaton worked by his strong fingers. She was strong enough to hold her own in a gentle, elastic fashion, which bent to his moods and reasserted itself when they were past. Lately she had felt the constant pressure too oppressive and she had relieved it by feeling out for a career of her own. She did occasional odd jobs for the London press, and did them in such fashion that her name was beginning ​to be known in Fleet Street. In finding this opening she had been greatly helped by an old friend of her father — and possibly of the reader — Mr. Edward Malone of the Daily Gazette.
Malone was still the same athletic Irishman who had once won his international cap at Rugby, but life had toned him down also, and made him a more subdued and thoughtful man. He had put away a good deal when at last his football-boots had been packed away for good. His muscles may have wilted and his joints stiffened, but his mind was deeper and more active. The boy was dead and the man was born. In person he had altered little, but his moustache was heavier, his back a little rounded, and some lines of thought were tracing themselves upon his brow. Post-war conditions and new world problems had left their mark. For the rest he had made his name in journalism and even to a small degree in literature. He was still a bachelor, though there were some who thought that his hold on that condition was precarious, and that Miss Enid Challenger’s little white fingers could disengage it. Certainly they were very good chums.
It was a Sunday evening in October, and the lights were just beginning to twinkle out through the fog which had shrouded London from early morning. Professor Challenger’s flat at Victoria West Gardens was upon the third floor, and the mist lay thick upon the windows, while the low hum of the attenuated Sunday traffic rose up from an invisible highway beneath, which was outlined only by scattered patches of dull radiance. Professor Challenger sat with his thick, bandy legs outstretched to the fire, and his hands thrust deeply into his trouser pockets. His dress had a little of the eccentricity of genius, for he wore a ​loose-collared shirt, a large knotted maroon-coloured silk tie, and a black velvet smoking-jacket, which, with his flowing beard, gave him the appearance of an elderly and Bohemian artist. On one side of him ready for an excursion, with bowl hat, short-skirted dress of black, and all the other fashionable devices with which women contrive to deform the beauties of nature, there sat his daughter, while Malone, hat in hand, waited by the window.
“I think we should get off, Enid. It is nearly seven,” said he.
They were writing joint articles upon the religious denominations of London, and on each Sunday evening they sallied out together to sample some new one and get copy for the next week’s issue of the Gazette.
“It's not till eight, Ted. We have lots of time.”
“Sit down, sir! Sit down!” boomed Challenger, tugging at his beard as was his habit if his temper was rising. “There is nothing annoys me more than having anyone standing behind me. A relic of atavism and the fear of a dagger, but still persistent. That’s right. For heaven’s sake put your hat down! You have a perpetual air of catching a train.”
“That’s the journalistic life,” said Malone. “If we don’t catch the perpetual train we get left. Even Enid is beginning to understand that. But still, as you say, there is time enough.”
“How far have you got?” asked Challenger.
Enid consulted a business-like little reporter’s notebook.
“We have done seven. There was Westminster Abbey for the Church in its most picturesque form, and Saint Agatha for the High Church, and Tudor Place for the Low. Then there was the Westminster Cathedral for Catholics, Endell Street for Pres​byterians, and Gloucester Square for Square for Unitarians. But to-night we are trying to introduce some variety. We are doing the Spiritualists.”
Challenger snorted like an angry buffalo.
“Next week the lunatic asylums, I presume,” said he. “You don’t mean to tell me, Malone, that these ghost people have got churches of their own.”
“I’ve been looking into that,” said Malone. “I always look up cold facts and figures before I tackle a job. They have over four hundred registered churches in Great Britain.”
Challenger's snorts now sounded like a whole herd of buffaloes.
“There seems to me to be absolutely no limit to the inanity and credulity of the human race. Homo sapiens! Homo idioticus! Whom do they pray to — the ghosts?”
“Well, that’s what we want to find out. We should get some copy out of them. I need not say that I share your view entirely, but I’ve seen something of Atkinson of St. Mary’s Hospital lately. He is a rising surgeon, you know.”
“I’ve heard of him — cerebro-spinal.”
“That’s the man. He is level-headed and is looked on as an authority on psychic research, as they call the new science which deals with these matters.”
“Science, indeed!”
“Well, that is what they call it. He seems to take these people seriously. I consult him when I want a reference, for he has the literature at his fingers’ end. ‘Pioneers of the Human Race’ — that was his description.”
“Pioneering them to Bedlam,” growled Challenger. “And literature! What literature have they?”
​“Well, that was another surprise. Atkinson has five hundred volumes, but complains that his psychic library is very imperfect. You see, there is French, German, Italian, as well as our own.”
“Well, thank God all the folly is not confined to poor old England. Pestilential nonsense!”
“Have you read it up at all, Father?” asked Enid.
“Read it up! I, with all my interests and no time for one-half of them! Enid, you are too absurd.”
“Sorry, Father. You spoke with such assurance, I thought you knew something about it.”
Challenger’s huge head swung round and his lion’s glare rested upon his daughter.
“Do you conceive that a logical brain, a brain of the first order, needs to read and to study before it can detect a manifest absurdity? Am I to study mathematics in order to confute the man who tells me that two and two are five? Must I study physics once more and take down my Principia because some rogue or fool insists that a table can rise in the air against the law of gravity? Does it take five hundred volumes to inform us of a thing which is proved in every police-court when an impostor is exposed? Enid, I am ashamed of you!”
His daughter laughed merrily.
“Well, Dad, you need not roar at me any more. I give in. In fact, I have the same feeling that you have.”
“None the less,” said Malone, “some good men support them. I don’t see that you can laugh at Lodge and Crookes and the others.”
“Don’t be absurd, Malone. Every great mind has its weaker side. It is a sort of reaction against all the good sense. You come suddenly upon a vein of positive nonsense. That is what is the matter with these ​fellows. No, Enid, I haven’t read their reasons, and I don’t mean to, either; some things are beyond the pale. If we re-open all the old questions, how can we ever get ahead with the new ones? This matter is settled by common sense, the law of England, and the universal assent of every sane European.”
“So that’s that!” said Enid.
“However,” he continued, “I can admit that there are occasional excuses for misunderstandings upon the point.” He sank his voice, and his great grey eyes looked sadly up into vacancy. “I have known cases where the coldest intellect — even my own intellect — might, for a moment, have been shaken.”
Malone scented copy.
“Yes, sir?”
Challenger hesitated. He seemed to be struggling with himself. He wished to speak, and yet speech was painful. Then, with an abrupt, impatient gesture, he plunged into his story:
“I never told you, Enid. It was too — too intimate. Perhaps too absurd. I was ashamed to have been so shaken. But it shows how even the best balanced may be caught unawares.”
“Yes, sir?”
“It was after my wife’s death. You knew her, Malone. You can guess what it meant to me. It was the night after the cremation . . . horrible, Malone, horrible! I saw the dear little body slide down, down — and then the glare of flame and the door clanged to.” His great body shook passed his big, hairy hand over his eyes.
“I don’t know why I tell you this; the talk seemed to lead up to it. It may be a warning to you. That night — the night after the cremation — I sat up in the hall. She was there,” he nodded at Enid. “She had ​fallen asleep in a chair, poor girl. You know the house at Rotherfield, Malone. It was in the big hall. I sat by the fireplace, the room all draped in shadow, and my mind draped in shadow also. I should have sent her to bed, but she was lying back in her chair and I did not wish to wake her. It may have been one in the morning — I remember the moon shining through the stained-glass window. I sat and I brooded. Then suddenly there came a noise.”
“Yes, sir?”
“It was low at first — just a ticking. Then it grew louder and more distinct — it was a clear rat-tat-tat. Now comes the queer coincidence, the sort of thing out of which legends grow when credulous folk have the shaping of them. You must know that my wife had a peculiar way of knocking at a door. It was really a little tune which she played with her fingers. I got into the same way so that we could each know when the other knocked. Well, it seemed to me — of course my mind was strained and abnormal — that the taps shaped themselves into the well-known rhythm of her knock. I couldn’t localise it. You can think how eagerly I tried. It was above me, somewhere on the woodwork. I lost sense of time. I daresay it was repeated a dozen times at least.”
“Oh, Dad, you never told me!”
“No, but I woke you up. I asked you to sit quiet with me for a little.”
“Yes, I remember that.”
“Well, we sat, but nothing happened. Not a sound more. Of course it was a delusion. Some insect in the wood; the ivy on the outer wall. My own brain furnished the rhythm. Thus do we make fools and children of ourselves. But it gave me an insight. I ​saw how even a clever man could be deceived by his own emotions.”
“But how do you know, sir, that it was not your wife?”
“Absurd, Malone! Absurd, I say! I tell you I saw her in the flames. What was there left?”
“Her soul, her spirit.”
Challenger shook his head sadly.
“When the dear body dissolved into its elements — when its gases went into the air and its residue of solids sank into a grey dust — it was the end. There was no more. She had played her part, played it beautifully, nobly. It was done. Death ends all, Malone. This soul-talk is the Animism of savages. It is a superstition, a myth. As a physiologist I will undertake to produce crime or virtue by vascular control or cerebral stimulation. I will turn a Jekyll into a Hyde by a surgical operation. Another can do it by a psychological suggestion. Alcohol will do it. Drugs will do it. Absurd, Malone, absurd ! As the tree falls, so does it lie. There is no next morning . . . night — eternal night . . . and long rest for the weary worker.”
“Well, it’s a sad philosophy.”
“Better a sad than a false one.”
“Perhaps so. There is something virile and manly in facing the worst. I would not contradict. My reason is with you.”
“But my instincts are against!” cried Enid. “No, no, never can I believe it.” She threw her arms round the great bull neck. “Don’t tell me, daddy, that you with all your complex brain and wonderful self are a thing with no more life hereafter than a broken clock!”
“Four buckets of water and a bagful of salts,” said ​Challenger as he smilingly detached his daughter’s grip. “That’s your daddy, my lass, and you may as well reconcile your mind to it. Well, it’s twenty to eight. Come back, if you can, Malone, and let me hear your adventures among the insane.”
CHAPTER II
WHICH DESCRIBES AN EVENING IN STRANGE COMPANY
THE love-affair of Enid Challenger and Edward Malone is not of the slightest interest to the reader, for the simple reason that it is not of the slightest interest to the writer. The unseen, unnoticed lure of the unborn babe is common to all youthful humanity. We deal in this chronicle with matters which are less common and of higher interest. It is only mentioned in order to explain those terms of frank and intimate comradeship which the narrative discloses. If the human race has obviously improved in anything — in Anglo-Celtic countries, at least — it is that the prim affectations and sly deceits of the past are lessened, and that young men and women can meet in an equality of clean and honest comradeship.
A taxi took the adventurers down Edgware Road and into the side-street called “Helbeck Terrace.” Halfway down, the dull line of brick houses was broken by one glowing gap, where an open arch threw a flood of light into the street. The cab pulled up and the man opened the door.
“This is the Spiritualist Church, sir,” said he. Then, as he saluted to acknowledge his tip, he added in the wheezy voice of the man of all weathers: “Tommy-rot, I call it, sir.” Having eased his conscience thus he climbed into his seat and a moment later his red rear-lamp was a waning circle in the gloom. Malone laughed.
​“Vox populi, Enid. That is as far as the public has got at the present.”
“Well, it is as far as we have got, for that matter.”
“Yes, but we are prepared to give them a show. I don’t suppose Cabby is. By Jove, it will be hard luck if we can’t get in!”
There was a crowd at the door and a man was facing them from the top of the step, waving his arms to keep them back.
“It’s no good, friends. I am very sorry, but we can’t help it. We’ve been threatened twice with prosecution for over-crowding.” He turned facetious. “Never heard of an Orthodox Church getting into trouble for that. No, sir, no.”
“I’ve come all the way from ’Ammersmith,” wailed a voice. The light beat upon the eager, anxious face of the speaker, a little woman in black with a baby in her arms.
“You’ve come for clairvoyance, Mam,” said the usher, with intelligence. “See here, give me the name and address and I will write you, and Mrs. Debbs will give you a sitting gratis. That’s better than taking your chance in the crowd when, with all the will in the world, you can’t all get a turn. You’ll have her to yourself. No, sir, there’s no use shovin’ . . . What’s that? . . . Press?
He had caught Malone by the elbow.
“Did you say Press? The Press boycott us, sir. Look at the weekly list of services in a Saturday’s Times if you doubt it. You wouldn’t know there was such a thing as Spiritualism. . . . What paper, sir ? . . . ‘The Daily Gazette.’ Well, well, we are getting on. And the lady, too ? . . . Special article — my word! Stick to me, sir, and I’ll see what I can do. Shut the doors, Joe. No use, friends. ​When the building fund gets on a bit we’ll have more room for you. Now, miss, this way, if you please.”
This way proved to be down the street and round a side-alley which brought them to a small door with a red lamp shining above it.
“I’ll have to put you on the platform—there’s no standing room in the body of the hall.”
“Good gracious!” cried Enid.
“You’ll have a fine view, miss, and maybe get a readin’ for yourself if you’re lucky. It often happens that those nearest the medium get the best chance. Now, sir, in here!”
Here was a frowsy little room with some hats and top-coats draping the dirty, white-washed walls. A thin, austere woman, with eyes which gleamed from behind her glasses, was warming her gaunt hands over a small fire. With his back to the fire in the traditional British attitude was a large, fat man with a bloodless face, a ginger moustache and curious, light-blue eyes—the eyes of a deep-sea mariner. A little bald-headed man with huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and a very handsome and athletic youth in a blue lounge-suit, completed the group.
“The others have gone on the platform, Mr. Peeble. There’s only five seats left for ourselves.” It was the fat man talking.
“I know, I know,” said the man who had been addressed as Peeble, a nervous, stringy, dried-up person as he now appeared in the light. “But this is the Press, Mr. Bolsover. Daily Gazette—special article. . . . Malone the name, and Challenger. This is Mr. Bolsover, our President. This is Mrs. Debbs of Liverpool, the famous clairvoyante. Here is Mr. James, and this tall young gentleman is Mr. Hardy Williams, our energetic secretary. Mr. Wil​liams is a nailer for the buildin’ fund. Keep an eye on your pockets if Mr. Williams is around.”
They all laughed.
“Collection comes later,” said Mr. Williams, smiling.
“ A good, rousing article is our best collection,” said the stout president. “Ever been to a meeting before, sir ? ”
“ No,” said Malone.
“ Don’t know much about it, I expect.”
“ No, I don’t.”
“ Well, well, we must expect a slating. They get it from the humorous angle at first. We’ll have you writing a very comic account. I never could see anything very funny in the spirit of one’s dead wife, but it’s a matter of taste and of knowledge also. If they don’t know, how can they take it seriously ? I don’t blame them. We were mostly like that ourselves once. I was one of Bradlaugh’s men, and sat under Joseph MacCabe until my old Dad came and pulled out.”
“ Good for him ! ” said the Liverpool medium.
“ It was the first time I found I had powers of my own. I saw him like I see you now.”
“ Was he one of us in the body ? ”
“ Knew no more than I did. But they come on amazin’ at the other side if the right folk get hold of them.”
“ Time’s up ! ” said Mr. Peeble, snapping his watch. “ You are on the right of the chair, Mrs. Debbs. Will you go first ? Then you, Mr. Chairman. Then you two and myself. Get on the left, Mr. Hardy Williams, and lead the singin’. They want warmin’ up and you can do it. Now then, if you please!”
​The platform was already crowded, but the newcomers threaded their way to the front amid a decorous murmur of welcome. Mr. Peeble shoved and exhorted and two end seats emerged upon which Enid and Malone perched themselves. The arrangement suited them well, for they could use their notebooks freely behind the shelter of the folk in front.
“ What is your reaction ? ” whispered Enid.
“ Not impressed as yet.”
“ No, nor I,” said Enid, “ but it’s very interesting all the same.”
People who are in earnest are always interesting, whether you agree with them or not, and it was im¬ possible to doubt that the people were extremely earnest. The hall was crammed, and as one looked down one saw line after line of upturned faces, cu¬ riously alike in type, women predominating, but men running them close. That type was not distinguished nor intellectual, but it was undeniably healthy, honest and sane. Small trades-folk, male and female shop¬ walkers, better class artisans, lower middle-class women worn with household cares, occasional young folk in search of a sensation — these were the impressions which the audience conveyed to the trained observation of Malone.
The fat president rose and raised his hand.
“ My friends,” said he, “ we have had once more to exclude a great number of people who’d desired to be with us to-night. It’s all a question of the building fund, and Mr. Williams on my left will be glad to hear from any of you. I was in a hotel last week and they had a notice hung up in the reception bureau. ‘ No cheques accepted.’ That’s not the way Brother Williams talks. You just try him.”
​The audience laughed. The atmosphere was clearly that of the lecture-hall rather than of the Church.
“ There’s just one more thing I want to say before I sit down. I’m not here to talk. I’m here to hold this chair down and I mean to do it. It’s a hard thing I ask. I want Spiritualists to keep away on Sunday nights. They take up the room that inquirers should have. You can have the morning service. But its better for the cause that there should be room for the stranger. You’ve had it. Thank God for it. Give the other man a chance.” The president plumped back into his chair.
Mr. Peeble sprang to his feet. He was clearly the general utility man who emerges in every society and probably becomes its autocrat. With his thin, eager face and darting hands he was more than a live wire — he was a whole bundle of live wires. Electricity seemed to crackle from his finger-tips.
“ Hymn One! ” he shrieked.
A harmonium droned and the audience rose. It was a fine hymn and lustily sung:
“The world hath felt a quickening breath
From Heaven’s eternal shore.
And souls triumphant over death
Return to earth once more. ”
There was a ring of exultation in the voices as the refrain rolled out:
“ For this we hold our Jubilee
For this with joy we sing,
'Oh Grave, where is thy victory,
Oh Death, where is thy sting ? ’ ”
Yes, they were in earnest, these people. And they did not appear to be mentally weaker than their fellows. And yet both Enid and Malone felt a sen¬ sation of great pity as they looked at them. How sad ​to be deceived upon so intimate a matter as this, to be duped by impostors who used their most sacred feel¬ ings and their beloved dead as counters with which to cheat them. What did they know of the laws of evi¬ dence, of the cold, immutable decrees of scientific law ? Poor earnest, honest, deluded people !
“ Now! ” screamed Mr. Peeble. “ We shall ask Mr. Munro from Australia to give us the invocation.”
A wild-looking old man with a shaggy beard and slumbering fire in his eyes rose up and stood for a few seconds with his gaze cast down. Then he began a prayer, very simple, very unpremeditated. Malone jotted down the first sentence: “ Oh, Father, we are very ignorant folk and do not well know how to approach you, but we will pray to you the best we know how.” It was all cast in that humble key. Enid and Malone exchanged a swift glance of appre¬ ciation.
There was another hymn, less successful than the first, and the chairman then announced that Mr. James Jones of North Wales would now deliver a trance address which would embody the views of his well- known control, Alasha the Atlantean.
Mr. James Jones, a brisk and decided little man in a faded check suit, came to the front and, after standing a minute or so as if in deep thought, gave a violent shudder and began to talk. It must be admitted that save for a certain fixed stare and vacuous glazing of the eye there was nothing to show that anything save Mr. James Jones of North Wales was the orator. It has also to be stated that if Mr. Jones shuddered at the beginning it was the turn of his audience to shudder afterwards. Granting his own claim, he had proved clearly that an Atlantean spirit might be a portentous bore. He droned on with platitudes and ​ineptitudes while Malone whispered to Enid that if Alasha was a fair specimen of the population it was just as well that his native land was safely engulfed in the Atlantic Ocean. When, with another rather melodramatic shudder, he emerged from his trance, the chairman sprang to his feet with an alacrity which showed that he was taking no risks lest the Atlantean should return.
“ We have present with us to-night,” he cried, “ Mrs. Debbs, the well-known clairvoyante of Liver¬ pool. Mrs. Debbs is, as many of you know, richly en¬ dowed with several of those gifts of the spirit of which Saint Paul speaks, and the discerning of spirits is among them. These things depend upon laws which are beyond our control, but a sympathetic atmosphere is essential, and Mrs. Debbs will ask for your good wishes and your prayers while she endeavours to get into touch with some of those shining ones on the other side who may honour us with their presence to-night.”
The president sat down and Mrs. Debbs rose amid discreet applause. Very tall, very pale, very thin, with an aquiline face and eyes shining brightly from behind her gold-rimmed glasses, she stood facing her expectant audience. Her head was bent. She seemed to be listening.
“ Vibrations ! ” she cried at last. “ I want helpful vibrations. Give me a verse on the harmonium, please.”
The instrument droned out “ Jesus, Lover of my soul.” The audience sat in silence, expectant and a little awed. The hall was not too well lit and dark shadows lurked in the corners. The medium still bent her head as if her ears were straining. Then she raised her hand and the music stopped.
“ Presently ! Presently ! All in good time,” said ​the woman, addressing some invisible companion. Then to the audience, “ I don't feel that the conditions are very good to-night. I will do my best and so will they. But I must talk to you first.”
And she talked. What she said seemed to the two strangers to be absolute gabble. There was no con¬ secutive sense in it, though now and again a phrase or sentence caught the attention. Malone put his stylo in his pocket. There was no use reporting a lunatic. A Spiritualist next him saw his bewildered disgust and leaned towards him.
“ She’s tuning in. She’s getting her wave length,” he whispered. “ It’s all a matter of vibration. Ah, there you are!”
She had stopped in the very middle of a sentence. Her long arm and quivering forefinger shot out. She was pointing at an elderly woman in the second row.
“ You ! Yes, you, with the red feather. No, not you. The stout lady in front. Yes, you ! There is a spirit building up behind you. It is a man. He is a tall man — six foot maybe. High forehead, eyes grey or blue, a long chin, brown moustache, lines on his face. Do you recognise him, friend ? ”
The stout woman looked alarmed, but shook her head.
“ Well, see if I can help you. He is holding up a book — brown book with a clasp. It’s a ledger same as they have in offices. I get the words ‘ Caledonian Insurance.’ Is that any help ? ”
The stout woman pursed her lips and shook her head vigorously.
“ Well, I can give you a little more. He died after a long illness. I get chest trouble — asthma.”
The stout woman was still obdurate, but a small, ​angry, red-faced person, two places away from her, sprang to her feet.
“It’s my ’usband, ma’am. Tell ’im I don’t want to ’ave any more dealin’s with him.” She sat down with decision.
“Yes, that’s right. He moves to you now. He was nearer the other. He wants to say he’s sorry. It doesn’t do, you know, to have hard feelings to the dead. Forgive and forget. It’s all over. I get a message for you. It is: ‘ Do it and my blessings go with you!’ Does that mean anything to you?”
The angry woman looked pleased and nodded.
“Very good.” The clairvoyante suddenly darted out her finger towards the crowd at the door. “It’s for the soldier.”
A soldier in khaki, looking very much amazed, was in the front of the knot of people.
“Wot’s for me?” he asked.
“It’s a soldier. He has a corporal’s stripes. He is a big man with grizzled hair. He has a yellow tab on his shoulders. I get the initials J. H. Do you know him ? ”
“Yes — but he’s dead,” said the soldier.
He had not understood that it was a Spiritualistic Church, and the whole proceedings had been a mystery to him. They were rapidly explained by his neighbours. “My Gawd!” cried the soldier, and vanished amid a general titter. In the pause Malone could hear the constant mutter of the medium as she spoke to someone unseen.
“Yes, yes, wait your turn ! Speak up, woman! Well, take your place near him. How should I know? Well, I will if I can.” She was like a janitor at the theatre marshalling a queue.
Her next attempt was a total failure. A solid man ​with bushy side-whiskers absolutely refused to have anything to do with an elderly gentleman who claimed kinship. The medium worked with admirable patience, coming back again and again with some fresh detail, but no progress could be made.
“Are you a Spiritualist, friend?”
“Yes, for ten years.”
“Well, you know there are difficulties.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“Think it over. It may come to you later. We must just leave it at that. I am only sorry for your friend.”
There was a pause during which Enid and Malone exchanged whispered confidences.
“What do you make of it, Enid?”
“I don’t know. It confuses me.”
“I believe it is half guess-work and the other half a case of confederates. These people are all of the same church and naturally they know each other’s affairs. If they don’t know they can enquire.”
“Someone said it was Mrs. Debbs’ first visit.”
“Yes, but they could easily coach her up. It is all clever quackery and bluff. It must be, for just think what is implied if it is not.”
“Telepathy, perhaps.”
“Yes, some element of that also. Listen! She is off again.”
Her next attempt was more fortunate. A lugubrious man at the back of the hall readily recognised the description and claims of his deceased wife.
“I get the name Walter.”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“She called you Walt? ”
“No.”
“Well, she calls Wat now. ‘Tell Wat to give ​my love to the children.’ That’s how I get it. She is worrying about the children.”
“She always did.”
“Well, they don’t change. Furniture. Something about furniture. She says you gave it away. Is that right?”
“Well, I might as well.”
The audience tittered. It was strange how the most solemn and the comic were eternally blended — strange and yet very natural and human.
“She has a message: ‘The man will pay up and all will be well. Be a good man, Wat, and we will be happier here than ever we were on earth.’”
The man put his hand over his eyes. As the seeress stood irresolute the tall young secretary half rose and whispered something in her ear. The woman shot a swift glance over her left shoulder in the direction of the visitors.
“I’ll come back to it,” said she.
She gave two more descriptions to the audience, both of them rather vague, and both recognised with some reservations. It was a curious fact that her details were such as she could not possibly see at the distance. Thus, dealing with a form which she claimed had built up at the far end of the hall, she could none the less give the colour of the eyes and small points of the face. Malone noted the point as one which he could use for destructive criticism. He was just jotting it down when the woman’s voice sounded louder and, looking up, he found that she had turned her head and her spectacles were flashing in his direction.
“It is not often I give a reading from the platform,” said she, her face rotating between him and the audience, “but we have friends here to-night, and ​it may interest them to come in contact with the spirit people. There is a presence building up behind the gentleman with a moustache — the gentleman who sits next to the young lady. Yes, sir, behind you. He is a man of middle size, rather inclined to shortness. He is old, over sixty, with white hair, curved nose and a white, small beard of the variety that is called goatee. He is no relation, I gather, but a friend. Does that suggest anyone to you, sir ? ”
Malone shook his head with some contempt. “It would fit nearly any old man,” he whispered to Enid.
“We will try to get a little closer. He has deep lines on his face. I should say he was an irritable man in his lifetime. He was quick and nervous in his ways. Does that help you?”
Again Malone shook his head.
“Rot! Perfect rot,” he muttered.
“Well, he seems very anxious so we must do what we can for him. He holds up a book. It is a learned book. He opens it and I see diagrams in it. Perhaps he wrote it— or perhaps he taught from it. Yes, he nods. He taught from it. He was a teacher.”
Malone remained unresponsive.
“I don’t know that I can help him any more. Ah! there is one thing. He has a mole over his right eyebrow.”
Malone started as if he had been stung.
“One mole?” he cried.
The spectacles flashed round again.
“Two moles — one large, one small.”
“My God!” gasped Malone. “ It’s Professor Summerlee!”
“Ah, you’ve got it. There’s a message : ‘Greetings to old—’ It’s a long name and begins with a C. I can’t get it. Does it mean anything?” ​“Yes.”
In an instant she had turned and was describing something or someone else. But she had left a badly-shaken man upon the platform behind her.
It was at this point that the orderly service had a remarkable interruption which surprised the audience as much as it did the two visitors. This was the sudden appearance beside the chairman of a tall, pale-faced, bearded man dressed like a superior artisan, who held up his hand with a quietly impressive gesture as one who was accustomed to exert authority. He then half turned and said a word to Mr. Bolsover.
“This is Mr.Miromar of Dalston,” said the Chair man. “Mr. Miromar has a message to deliver. We are always glad to hear from Mr. Miromar.”
The reporters could only get a half-view of the new- comer’s face, but both of them were struck by his noble bearing and by the massive outline of his head which promised very unusual intellectual power. His voice when he spoke rang clearly and pleasantly through the hall.
“I have been ordered to give the message wherever I think that there are ears to hear it. There are some here who are ready for it, and that is why I have come. They wish that the human race should gradually understand the situation so that there shall be the less shock or panic. I am one of several who are chosen to carry the news.”
“A lunatic, I’m afraid!” whispered Malone, scribbling hard upon his knee. There was a general inclination to smile among the audience. And yet there was something in the man’s manner and voice which made them hang on every word.
“Things have now reached a climax. The very idea of progress has been made material. It is prog​ress to go swiftly, to send swift messages, to build new machinery. All this is a diversion of real ambition. There is only one real progress — spiritual progress. Mankind gives it a lip tribute but presses on upon its false road of material science.
“The Central Intelligence recognised that amid all the apathy there was also much honest doubt which had outgrown old creeds and had a right to fresh evidence. Therefore fresh evidence was sent — evidence which made the life after death as clear as the sun in the heavens. It was laughed at by scientists, condemned by the churches, became the butt of the newspapers and was discarded with contempt. That was the last and greatest blunder of humanity.”
The audience had their chins up now. General speculations were beyond their mental horizon. But this was very clear to their comprehension. There was a murmur of sympathy and applause.
“The thing was now hopeless. It had got beyond all control. Therefore something sterner was needed since Heaven’s gift had been disregarded. The blow fell. Ten million men were laid dead upon the ground. Twice as many were mutilated. That was God’s first warning to mankind. But it was vain. The same dull materialism prevailed as before. Years of grace were given, and save the stirrings of the spirit seen in such churches as these, no change was anywhere to be seen. The nations heaped up fresh loads of sin and sin must ever be atoned for. Russia became a cesspool. Germany was unrepentant of her terrible materialism which had been the prime cause of the war. Spain and Italy were sunk in alternate atheism and superstition. France had no religious ideal. Britain was confused and distracted, full of wooden sects which had nothing of life in them. ​America had abused her glorious opportunities and instead of being the loving younger brother to a stricken Europe she held up all economic reconstruction by her money claims; she dishonoured the signature of her own president, and she refused to join that League of Peace which was the one hope of the future. All have sinned, but some more than others, and their punishment will be in exact proportion.
“And that punishment comes soon. These are the exact words I have been asked to give you. I read them lest I should in any way garble them.”
He took a slip of paper from his pocket and read:
“‘What we want is, not that folk should be frightened, but that they should begin to change themselves — to develop themselves on more spiritual lines. We are not trying to make people nervous, but to prepare while there is yet time. The world cannot go on as it has done. It would destroy itself if it did. Above all we must sweep away the dark cloud of theology which has come between mankind and God.’”
He folded up the paper and replaced it in his pocket.
“That is what I have been asked to tell you. Spread the news where there seems to be a window in the soul. Say to them, ‘Repent ! Reform ! the Time is at hand.’”
He had paused and seemed about to turn. The spell was broken. The audience rustled and leaned back in its seats. Then a voice came from the back.
“Is this the end of the world, mister?”
“No,” said the stranger, curtly.
“Is it the Second Coming?” asked another voice.
“Yes.”
With quick, light steps he threaded his way among ​the chairs on the platform and stood near the door. When Malone next looked round he was gone.
“He is one of these Second-coming fanatics,” he whispered to Enid. “There are a lot of them— Christadelphians, Russellites, Bible Students and what-not. But he was impressive.”
“Very,” said Enid.
“We have, I am sure, been very interested in what our friend has told us,” said the chairman. “Mr. Miromar is in hearty sympathy with our movement even though he cannot be said actually to belong to it. I am sure he is always welcome upon our platforms. As to his prophecy, it seems to me the world has had enough trouble without our anticipating any more. If it is as our friend says, we can’t do much to mend the matter. We can only go about our daily jobs, do them as well as we can, and await the event in full confidence of help from above. If it’s the Day of Judgment to-morrow,” he added, smiling, “I mean to look after my provision store at Hammersmith to-day. We shall now continue with the service.”
There was a vigorous appeal for money and a great deal about the building-fund from the young secretary. “It’s a shame to think that there are more left in the street than in the building on a Sunday night. We all give our services. No one takes a penny. Mrs. Debbs is here for her bare expenses. But we want another thousand pounds before we can start. There is one brother here who mortgaged his house to help us. That’s the spirit that wins. Now let us see what you can do for us to-night.”
A dozen soup-plates circulated, and a hymn was sung to the accompaniment of much chinking of coin. Enid and Malone conversed in undertones.
​“Professor Summerlee died, you know, at Naples last year.”
“Yes, I remember him well.”
“And ‘old C.’ was, of course, your father.”
“It was really remarkable.”
“Poor old Summerlee. He thought survival was an absurdity. And here he is—or here he seems to be.”
The soup-plates returned—it was mostly brown soup, unhappily, and they were deposited on the table where the eager eye of the secretary appraised their value. Then the little shaggy man from Australia gave a benediction in the same simple fashion as the opening prayer. It needed no Apostolic succession or laying-on of hands to make one feel that his words were from a human heart and might well go straight to a Divine one. Then the audience rose and sang their final farewell hymn—a hymn with a haunting tune and a sad, sweet refrain of “God keep you safely till we meet once more.” Enid was surprised to feel the tears running down her cheeks. These earnest, simple folk with their direct methods had wrought upon her more than all the gorgeous service and rolling music of the cathedral.
Mr. Bolsover, the stout president, was in the waiting-room and so was Mrs. Debbs.
“Well, I expect you are going to let us have it,” he laughed. “ We are used to it, Mr. Malone. We don’t mind. But you will see the turn some day. These articles may rise up in judgment.”
“I will treat it fairly, I assure you.”
“Well, we ask no more.”
The medium was leaning with her elbow on the mantelpiece, austere and aloof.
“I am afraid you are tired,” said Enid.
​“No, young lady, I am never tired in doing the work of the spirit people. They see to that.”
“May I ask,” Malone ventured, “ whether you ever knew Professor Summerlee?”
The medium shook her head.
“No, sir, no. They always think I know them. I know none of them. They come and I describe them.”
“How do you get the message?”
“Clairaudient. I hear it. I hear them all the time. The poor things all want to come through and they pluck at me and pull me and pester me on the platform. ‘Me next — me — me!’ That's what I hear. I do my best, but I can’t handle them all.”
“Can you tell me anything of that prophetic person?” asked Malone of the chairman. Mr. Bolsover shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating smile.
“He is an Independent. We see him now and again as a sort of comet passing across us. By the way, it comes back to me that he prophesied the war. I’m a practical man myself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We get plenty in ready cash without any bills for the future. Well, good night! Treat us as well as you can.”
“Good night,” said Enid.
“Good night,” said Mrs. Debbs. “By the way, young lady, you are a medium yourself. Good night!”
And so they found themselves in the street once more inhaling long draughts of the night air. It was sweet after that crowded hall. A minute later they were in the rush of the Edgware Road and Malone had hailed a cab to carry them back to Victoria Gardens.
CHAPTER III IN WHICH PROFESSOR CHALLENGER GIVES HIS OPINION
ENID had stepped into the cab and Malone was following when his name was called and a man came running down the street. He was tall, middle-aged, handsome and well-dressed, with the clean- shaven, self-confident face of the successful surgeon.
“Hullo, Malone! Stop!”
“Why, it’s Atkinson. Enid, let me introduce you. This is Mr. Atkinson of St. Mary’s about whom I spoke to your father. Can we give you a lift ? We are going towards Victoria.”
“Capital!” The surgeon followed them into the cab. “ I was amazed to see you at a Spiritualist meeting.”
“We were only there professionally. Miss Challenger and I are both on the Press.”
“Oh, really ! The Daily Gazette, I suppose, as before. Well, you will have one more subscriber, for I shall want to see what you made of to-night’s show.”
“You’ll have to wait till next Sunday. It is one of a series.”
“Oh, I say, I can’t wait as long as that. What did you make of it?”
“I really don’t know. I shall have to read my notes carefully to-morrow and think it over, and compare impressions with my colleague here. She has the intuition, you see, which goes for so much in religious matters.”
​“And what is your intuition, Miss Challenger?”
“Good — oh, yes, good! But, dear me, what an extraordinary mixture!”
“Yes, indeed, I have been several times and it always leaves the same mixed impression upon my own mind. Some of it is ludicrous, and some of it might be dishonest, and yet again some of it is clearly wonderful.”
“But you are not on the Press. Why were you there?”
“Because I am deeply interested. You see, I am a student of psychic matters and have been for some years. I am not a convinced one but I am sympathetic, and I have sufficient sense of proportion to realise that while I seem to be sitting in judgment upon the subject it may in truth be the subject which is sitting in judgment upon me.”
Malone nodded appreciation.
“It is enormous. You will realise that as you get to close grips with it. It is half a dozen great subjects in one. And it is all in the hands of these good humble folk who, in the face of every discouragement and personal loss, have carried it on for more than seventy years. It is really very like the rise of Christianity. It was run by slaves and underlings until it gradually extended upwards. There were three hundred years between Cæsar’s slave and Cæsar getting the light.”
“But the preacher!” cried Enid in protest.
Mr. Atkinson laughed.
“You mean our friend from Atlantis. What a terrible bore the fellow was ! I confess I don’t know what to make of performances like that. Self-deception, I think, and the temporary emergence of some fresh strand of personality which dramatises itself in this way. The only thing I am quite sure of is that it ​is not really an inhabitant of Atlantis who arrives from his long voyage with this awful cargo of platitudes. Well, here we are!”
“I have to deliver this young lady safe and sound to her father,” said Malone. “Look here, Atkinson, don’t leave us. The Professor would really like to see you.”
“What, at this hour! Why, he would throw me down the stairs.”
“You’ve been hearing stories,” said Enid. “Really it is not so bad as that. Some people annoy him, but I am sure you are not one of them. Won’t you chance it?”
“With that encouragement, certainly.” And the three walked down the bright outer corridor to the lift.
Challenger, clad now in a brilliant blue dressing-gown, was eagerly awaiting them. He eyed Atkinson as a fighting bulldog eyes some canine stranger. The inspection seemed to satisfy him, however, for he growled that he was glad to meet him.
“I’ve heard of your name, sir, and of your rising reputation. Your resection of the cord last year made some stir, I understand. But have you been down among the lunatics also?”
“Well, if you call them so,” said Atkinson with a laugh.
“Good Heavens, what else could I call them? I remember now that my young friend here” (Challenger had a way of alluding to Malone as if he were a promising boy of ten) “ told me you were studying the subject.” He roared with offensive laughter. “‘The proper study of mankind is spooks,’ eh, Mr. Atkinson?”
“Dad really knows nothing about it, so don’t be ​offended with him,” said Enid. “But I assure you, Dad, you would have been interested.” She proceeded lo give a sketch of their adventures, though interrupted by a running commentary of groans, grunts and derisive jeers. It was only when the Summerlee episode was reached that Challenger’s indignation and contempt could no longer be restrained. The old volcano blew his head off and a torrent of red-hot invective descended upon his listeners.
“The blasphemous rascals !” he shouted. “To think that they can’t let poor old Summerlee rest in his grave. We had our differences in his time and I will admit that I was compelled to take a moderate view of his intelligence, but if he came back from the grave he would certainly have something worth hearing to say to us. It is an absurdity — a wicked, indecent absurdity upon the face of it. I object to any friend of mine being made a puppet for the laughter of an audience of fools. They didn’t laugh! They must have laughed when they heard an educated man, a man whom I have met upon equal terms, talking such nonsense. I say it was nonsense. Don’t contradict me, Malone. I won’t have it! His message might have been the postscript of a schoolgirl’s letter. Isn’t that nonsense, coming from such a source? Are you not in agreement, Mr. Atkinson? No! I had hoped better things from you.”
“But the descriptions?”
“Good Heavens, where are your brains? Have not the names of Summerlee and Malone been associated with my own in some peculiarly feeble fiction which attained some notoriety? Is it not also known that you two innocents were doing the Churches week by week? Was it not patent that sooner or later you would come to a Spiritualist gathering ? Here was a ​chance for a convert! They set a bait and poor old gudgeon Malone came along and swallowed it. Here he is with the hook still stuck in his silly mouth. Oh, yes, Malone, plain speaking is needed and you shall have it.” The Professor’s black mane was bristling and his eyes glaring from one member of the company to another.
“Well, we want every view expressed,” said Atkinson. “You seem very qualified, sir, to express the negative one. At the same time I would repeat in my own person the words of Thackeray. He said to some objector: ‘What you say is natural, but if you had seen what I have seen you might alter your opinion.’ Perhaps some time you will be able to look into the matter, for your high position in the scientific world would give your opinion great weight.”
“If I have a high place in the scientific world as you say, it is because I have concentrated upon what is useful and discarded what is nebulous or absurd. My brain, sir, does not pare the edges. It cuts right through. It has cut right through this and has found fraud and folly.”
“Both are there at times,” said Atkinson, “and yet . . . and yet ! Ah, well, Malone, I’m some way from home and it is late. You will excuse me, Professor. I am honoured to have met you.”
Malone was leaving also and the two friends had a few minutes’ chat before they went their separate ways, Atkinson to Wimpole Street and Malone to South Norwood, where he was now living.
“Grand old fellow!” said Malone, chuckling.“ You must never get offended with him. He means no harm. He is splendid.”
“Of course he is. But if anything could make me a real out-and-out Spiritualist it is that sort of in​tolerance. It is very common, though it is generally cast rather in the tone of the quiet sneer than of the noisy roar. I like the latter best. By the way, Malone, if you care to go deeper into this subject I may be able to help you. You’ve heard of Linden?”
“Linden, the professional medium. Yes, I’ve been told he is the greatest blackguard unhung.”
“Ah, well, they usually talk of them like that. You must judge for yourself. He put his knee-cap out last winter and I put it in again, and that has made a friendly bond between us. It’s not always easy to get him, and of course a small fee, a guinea I think, is usual, but if you wanted a sitting I could work it.”
“You think him genuine?”
Atkinson shrugged his shoulders.
“I daresay they all take the line of least resistance. I can only say that I have never detected him in fraud. You must judge for yourself.”
CHAPTER IV WHICH DESCRIBES SOME STRANGE DOINGS IN HAMMERSMITH
THE article by the Joint Commissioners (such was their glorious title) aroused interest and contention. It had been accompanied by a depreciating leaderette from the sub-editor which was meant to calm the susceptibilities of his orthodox readers, as who should say; “These things have to be noticed and seem to be true, but of course you and I recognise how pestilential it all is.” Malone found himself at once plunged into a huge correspondence, for and against, which in itself was enough to show how vitally the question was in the minds of men. All the previous articles had only elicited a growl here or there from a hide-bound Catholic or from an iron-clad Evangelical, but now his post-bag was full. Most of them were ridiculing the idea that psychic forces existed and many were from writers who, whatever they might know of psychic forces, had obviously not yet learned to spell. The Spiritualists were in many cases not more pleased than the others, for Malone had — even while his account was true — exercised a journalist’s privilege of laying an accent on the more humorous sides of it.
One morning in the succeeding week Mr. Malone was aware of a large presence in the small room wherein he did his work at the office. A page-boy, who preceded the stout visitor, had laid a card on the ​corner of the table which bore the legend ‘James Bolsover, Provision Merchant, High Street, Hammersmith.’ It was none other than the genial president of last Sunday’s congregation. He wagged a paper accusingly at Malone, but his good-humoured face was wreathed in smiles.
“Well, well,” said he. “I told you that the funny side would get you.”
“Don’t you think it a fair account?”
“Well, yes, Mr. Malone, I think you and the young woman have done your best for us. But, of course, you know nothing and it all seems queer to you. Come to think of it, it would be a deal queerer if all the clever men who leave this earth could not among them find some way of getting a word back to us.”
“But it’s such a stupid word sometimes.”
“Well, there are a lot of stupid people leave the world. They don’t change. And then, you know, one never knows what sort of message is needed. We had a clergyman in to see Mrs. Debbs yesterday. He was broken-hearted because he had lost his daughter. Mrs. Debbs got several messages through that she was happy and that only his grief hurt her. ‘ That’s no use,’ said he. ‘ Anyone could say that. That’s not my girl.’ And then suddenly she said: ‘ But I wish to goodness you would not wear a Roman collar with a coloured shirt.’ That sounded a trivial message, but the man began to cry. ‘ That’s her,’ he sobbed. ‘ She was always chipping me about my collars.’ It’s the little things that count in this life — just the homely, intimate things, Mr. Malone.”
Malone shook his head.
“Anyone would remark on a coloured shirt and a clerical collar.”
Mr. Bolsover laughed. “ You’re a hard proposi​tion. So was I once, so I can’t blame you. But I called here with a purpose. I expect you are a busy man and I know that I am, so I’ll get down to the brass tacks. First, I wanted to say that all our people that have any sense are pleased with the article. Mr. Algernon Mailey wrote me that it would do good, and if he is pleased we are all pleased.”
“Mailey the barrister?”
“Mailey, the religious reformer. That’s how he will be known.”
“Well, what else?”
“Only that we would help you if you and the young lady wanted to go further in the matter. Not for publicity, mind you, but just for your own good— though we don’t shrink from publicity, either. I have physical phenomena seances at my own home without a professional medium, and if you would like . . .”
“There’s nothing I would like so much.”
“Then you shall come—both of you. I don’t have many outsiders. I wouldn’t have one of those psychic research people inside my doors. Why should I go out of my way to be insulted by all their suspicions and their traps ? They seem to think that folk have no feelings. But you have some ordinary common sense. That’s all we ask.”
“But I don’t believe. Would that not stand in the way?”
“Not in the least. So long as you are fair-minded and don’t disturb the conditions, all is well. Spirits out of the body don’t like disagreeable people any more than spirits in the body do. Be gentle and civil, same as you would to any other company.”
“Well, I can promise that.”
“They are funny sometimes,” said Mr. Bolsover, in reminiscent vein. “It is as well to keep on the right ​side of them. They are not allowed to hurt humans, but we all do things we’re not allowed to do, and they are very human themselves. You remember how The Times correspondent got his head cut open with the tambourine in one of the Davenport Brothers’ seances. Very wrong, of course, but it happened. No friend ever got his head cut open. There was another case down Stepney way. A money-lender went to a seance. Some victim that he had driven to suicide got into the medium. He got the money-lender by the throat and it was a close thing for his life. But I’m off, Mr. Malone. We sit once a week and have done for four years without a break. Eight o’clock Thursdays. Give us a day’s notice and I’ll get Mr. Mailey to meet you. He can answer questions better than I. Next Thursday ! Very good.” And Mr. Bolsover lurched out of the room.
Both Malone and Enid Challenger had, perhaps, been more shaken by their short experience than they had admitted, but both were sensible people who agreed that every possible natural cause should be ex¬ hausted — and very thoroughly exhausted — before the bounds of what is possible should be enlarged. Both of them had the utmost respect for the ponderous intellect of Challenger and were affected by his strong views, though Malone was compelled to admit in the frequent arguments in which he was plunged that the opinion of a clever man who has had no experience is really of less value than that of the man in the street who has actually been there.
These arguments, as often as not, were with Mervin, editor of the psychic paper Dawn, which dealt with every phase of the occult, from the lore of the Rosicrucians to the strange regions of the students of the Great Pyramid, or of those who uphold the Jewish ​origin of our blonde Anglo-Saxons. Mervin was a small, eager man with a brain of a high order, which might have carried him to the most lucrative heights of his profession had he not determined to sacrifice worldly prospects in order to help what seemed to him to be a great truth. As Malone was eager for knowledge and Mervin was equally keen to impart it, the waiters at the Literary Club found it no easy matter to get them away from the corner-table in the window at which they were wont to lunch. Looking down at the long, grey curve of the Embankment and the noble river with its vista of bridges, the pair would linger over their coffee, smoking cigarettes and discuss¬ ing various sides of this most gigantic and absorbing subject, which seemed already to have disclosed new horizons to the mind of Malone.
There was one warning given by Mervin which aroused impatience amounting almost to anger in Malone’s mind. He had the hereditary Irish objection to coercion and it seemed to him to be appearing once more in an insidious and particularly objectionable form.
“You are going to one of Bolsover’s family seances,” said Mervin. “They are, of course, well known among our people, though few have been actually admitted, so you may consider yourself privileged. He has clearly taken a fancy to you.”
“He thought I wrote fairly about them.”
“Well, it wasn’t much of an article, but still among the dreary, purblind nonsense that assails us, it did show some traces of dignity and balance and sense of proportion.”
Malone waved a deprecating cigarette.
“Bolsover seances and others like them are, of course, things of no moment to the real psychic. They ​are like the rude foundations of a building which certainly help to sustain the edifice, but are forgotten when once you come to inhabit it. It is the higher superstructure with which we have to do. You would think that the physical phenomena were the whole subject — those and a fringe of ghosts and haunted houses — if you were to believe the cheap papers who cater for the sensationalist. Of course, these physical phenomena have a use of their own. They rivet the attention of the inquirer and encourage him to go further. Personally, having seen them all, I would not go across the road to see them again. But I would go across many roads to get high messages from the beyond.”
“Yes, I quite appreciate the distinction, looking at it from your point of view. Personally, of course, I am equally agnostic as to the messages and the phenomena.”
“Quite so. St. Paul was a good psychic. He makes the point so neatly that even his ignorant translators were unable to disguise the real occult meanings as they have succeeded in doing in so many cases.”
“Can you quote it?”
“I know my New Testament pretty well, but I am not letter-perfect. It is the passage where he says that the gift of tongues, which was an obvious sensational thing, was for the uninstructed, but that prophecies, that is real spiritual messages, were for the elect. In other words that an experienced Spiritualist has no need of phenomena.”
“I’ll look that passage up.”
“You will find it in Corinthians, I think. By the way, there must have been a pretty high average of intelligence among those old congregations if Paul’s ​letters could have been read aloud to them and thoroughly comprehended.”
“That is generally admitted, is it not?”
“Well, it is a concrete example of it. However, I am down a side-track. What I wanted to say to you is that you must not take Bolsover’s little spirit circus too seriously. It is honest as far as it goes, but it goes a mighty short way. It’s a disease, this phenomena hunting. I know some of our people, women mostly, who buzz around seance rooms continually, seeing the same thing over and over, sometimes real, sometimes, I fear, imitation. What the better are they for that as souls or as citizens or any other way ? No, when your foot is firm on the bottom rung don’t mark time on it, but step up to the next rung and get firm upon that.”
“I quite get your point. But I’m still on the solid ground.”
“Solid!” cried Mervin. “Good Lord ! But the paper goes to press to-day and I must get down to the printer. With a circulation of ten thousand or so we do things modestly, you know — not like you plutocrats of the daily press. I am practically the staff.”
“You said you had a warning.”
“Yes, yes, I wanted to give you a warning.” Mervin’s thin, eager face became intensely serious. “If you have any ingrained religious or other prejudices which may cause you to turn down this subject after you have investigated it, then don’t investigate at all — for it is dangerous.”
“What do you mean — dangerous?”
“They don’t mind honest doubt, or honest criticism, but if they are badly treated they are dangerous.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“Ah, who are they ? I wonder. Guides, controls, psychic entities of some kind. Who the agents of ​vengeance — or I should say justice — are, is really not essential. The point is that they exist.”
“Oh, rot, Mervin !”
“Don’t be too sure of that.”
“Pernicious rot ! These are the old theological bogies of the Middle Ages coming up again. I am surprised at a sensible man like you !”
Mervin smiled — he had a whimsical smile — but his eyes, looking out from under bushy yellow brows, were as serious as ever.
“You may come to change your opinion. There are some queer sides to this question. As a friend I put you wise to this one.”
“Well, put me wise, then.”
Thus encouraged, Mervin went into the matter. He rapidly sketched the career and fate of a number of men who had, in his opinion, played an unfair game with these forces, become an obstruction, and suffered for it. He spoke of judges who had given prejudiced decisions against the cause, of journalists who had worked up stunt cases for sensational purposes and to throw discredit on the movement; of others who had interviewed mediums to make game of them, or who, having started to investigate, had drawn back alarmed, and given a negative decision when their inner soul knew that the facts were true. It was a formidable list, for it was long and precise, but Malone was not to be driven.
“If you pick your cases I have no doubt one could make such a list about any subject. Mr. Jones said that Raphael was a bungler, and Mr. Jones died of angina pectoris. Therefore it is dangerous to criticise Raphael. That seems to be the argument.”
“Well, if you like to think so.”
“Take the other side. Look at Morgate. He has ​always been an enemy, for he is a convinced materialist. But he prospers — look at his professorship.”
“Ah, an honest doubter. Certainly. Why not?”
“And Morgan who at one time exposed mediums.”
“If they were really false he did good service.”
“And Falconer who has written so bitterly about you?”
“Ah, Falconer ! Do you know anything of Falconer’s private life? No. Well, take it from me he has got his dues. He doesn’t know why. Some day these gentlemen will begin to compare notes and then it may dawn on them. But they get it.” He went on to tell a horrible story of one who had devoted his considerable talents to picking Spiritualism to pieces though really convinced of its truth, because his worldly ends were served thereby. The end was ghastly — too ghastly for Malone.
“Oh, cut it out, Mervin!” he cried impatiently.
“I’ll say what I think, no more and no less, and I won’t be scared by you or your spooks into altering my opinions.”
“I never asked you to.”
“You got a bit near it. What you have said strikes me as pure superstition. If what you say is true you should have the police after you.”
“Yes, if we did it. But it is out of our hands. However, Malone, for what it’s worth I have given you the warning and you can now go your way. Bye- bye ! You can always ring me up at the office of Dawn.”
If you want to know if a man is of the true Irish blood there is one infallible test. Put him in front of a swing-door with “Push” or “Pull” printed upon it. The Englishman will obey like a sensible man. The Irishman, with less sense but more individuality, will ​at once and with vehemence do the opposite. So it was with Malone. Mervin’s well-meant warning simply raised a rebellious spirit within him, and when he called for Enid to take her to the Bolsover seance he had gone back several degrees in his dawning sympathy for the subject. Challenger bade them farewell with many gibes, his beard projecting forward and his eyes closed with upraised eyebrows, as was his wont when inclined to be facetious.
“You have your powder-bag, my dear Enid. If you see a particularly good specimen of ectoplasm in the course of the evening don’t forget your father. I have a microscope, chemical reagents and everything ready. Perhaps even a small poltergeist might come your way. Any trifle would be welcome.”
His bull’s bellow of laughter followed them into the lift.
The provision merchant’s establishment of Mr. Bolsover proved to be a euphemism for an old-fashioned grocer’s shop, in the most crowded part of Hammersmith. The neighbouring church was chiming out the three-quarters as the taxi drove up, and the shop was full of people, so Enid and Malone walked up and down outside. As they were so engaged another taxi drove up and a large, untidy-looking, ungainly bearded man in a suit of Harris tweed stepped out of it. He glanced at his watch and then began to pace the pavement. Presently he noted the others and came up to them.
“May I ask if you are the journalists who are going to attend the seance? . . . I thought so. Old Bolsover is terribly busy so you were wise to wait. Bless him, he is one of God’s saints in his way.”
“You are Mr. Algernon Mailey, I presume?”
“Yes. I am the gentleman whose credulity is giving ​rise to considerable anxiety upon the part of my friends, as one of the rags remarked the other day.” His laugh was so infectious that the others were bound to laugh also. Certainly, with his athletic proportions, which had run a little to seed but were still notable, and with his virile voice and strong if homely face, he gave no impression of instability.
“We are all labelled with some stigma by our opponents,” said he. “I wonder what yours will be.”
“We must not sail under false colours, Mr. Mailey,” said Enid. “We are not yet among the believers.”
“Quite right. You should take your time over it. It is infinitely the most important thing in the world, so it is worth taking time over. I took many years myself. Folk can be blamed for neglecting it, but no one can be blamed for being cautious in examination. Now I am all out for it, as you are aware, because I know it is true. There is such a difference between believing and knowing. I lecture a good deal. But I never want to convert my audience. I don’t believe in sudden conversions. They are shallow, superficial things. All I want is to put the thing before the people as clearly as I can. I just tell them the truth and why we know it is the truth. Then my job is done. They can take it or leave it. If they are wise they will explore along the paths that I indicate. If they are unwise they miss their chance. I don’t want to press them or to proselytise. It’s their affair, not mine.”
“Well, that seems a reasonable view,” said Enid, who was attracted by the frank manner of their new acquaintance. They were standing now in the full flood of light cast by Bolsover’s big plate-glass window. She had a good look at him, his broad forehead,