Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1911-11-04
THE DD0EECC0D'C MYCTEDY By Wells Hastings and Brian Hooker
49, Avn ~ = @ANt Copyright 1911 TIE RbmMn Company
Copyright, 1911, TIE Robbs-Nerri.. compa

EVERY SORT. ! mean every sort
that's got the social drag or the promi-
nence in his business to get in with
the crowd. But inside of that, you get
'em all kinds, you see. The chap that
let us in is a philosopher prof. an a
psychic researcher-Shelburgh, his
name is. That old gink over there
alone by himself is some other pioneer
o modern thought. I've got to find out
about him later. The rest are mostly
social lights, I guess. This is the
Emmett L~angdons' house, an they're
here somewhere. | can't see faces yet,
can your"
/ shook my head. I'VE seem to be
in Sunday edition company, anyway
Sure. All head-liners. Faces on HE
in every office. Hullo, here's the
spoo6stress. They're off in a bunch!
A rather heavy woman in a Ion
drab dust-coat had come in, followed
by Professor ~Shelburgh, who closed the
door behind them. | gathered a vague
impression. only half visual, that she
was middle-aged and of that plumply
blond type which ages by mpercepti-
BILE degrees. She made me think, some
how, of a mass of molasses candy after
it has been pulled into paleness and
before it has hardened; but | could
not tell whether this suggestion came
from her voice or from her sleeplly
effusive manner or was a mere fancy
about a physical presence which could
hardly see. She tod off her hat and
coat, and sat down at the centre table,
pushing back her hair and rubbing her
hands over her face as If to of
Dire wsiness, while the others, except
Maclean and myself and the gentleman
in the corner, drew up their seats in a
circle about the table and placed their
hands upon it. The professor counted
the hands aloud in a ~perfunctory tone,
and they all leaned forward, hand
touching hand around the circle.
Are we all right, Mrs. Mahl?" the
professor asked.
"AIl right-all right" cooed the
medium; conditions are good today
can feel 'em comm already-slng to
me, somebody"
The old gentleman in the corner
made a dull sound that might have
been a snort or a suppressed cough.
One Of the women began to sing
"Suwanee River" just above her breath
md the others Joined in. half-hum-
ming, half-crooning. 1t was like h
singing of children in its ~toneless uni
son. in its dragged rhythms and slur-
ring from note to note; and the alb
surd resemblance of the scene to a
game of Jenkins-Up gave the final
touch of incongruity. These people.
or some of them at least, awaited the
very presence of the dead; all were in
quest of the supernatural or the un-
known. Here were the dimness, the
fragile tension. the impalpable weight
of mutually, the atmosphere of a
coming crisis; and this in the m
place room, closed up for the summer,
with the traffic of the avOlGe outside
and the commonplace people within, in
congruous in their ordinary clothes,
sitting with their. hands upon
a table and hummlng a fackneyed
melody a little off the key. There was
an unreality about it all, a touch
of theatrical tawdriness, of mum-sery
and tinsel gold and canvas distances.
an aeuteness of that feeling which one
always has in the elimaXes of actual
life that they cannot be quite real be-
cause the setting is not strange enough.
The monotonous sound and the close
air made me drowsy, thinking with the
hurried vividness of a doze. 1t was
unnatural for mysteries to happen in a
drawing-room; but then, mysteries
were themselves unnatural, inc must
happen il at all in the world of there
and then. Though it seemed somehow
that a ghost should appear only upon
the storied battlements of Elsinore to
people in archaic dress, yet to Hamlet
himself those surroundings were the
scene of ordinary days; and the per-
| sons of all the wonder-stories had been
in their own sight contemporary citi-
zens. Macbeth saw Banquo at the
dinner table, and it was the people in
the street who crowded to look upon
the miracles.
(To He Continued on Monday
Hrs EI.-...,