While Will Deverill’s operetta was still in rehearsal at the Duke of Edinburgh’s, a little episode occurred at Rue’s house in Hans Place, which was not without a certain weird influence of its own on the after-life of herself and her companions.
Rue gave an At Home one night early in March, to which Florian and Will Deverill were invited. Will brought his sister with him—the sister who was married to an East End curate, and who had called upon Rue at her brother’s bidding.
“Well, what do you think of her to-night, Maud?” Will asked a little anxiously as they stood alone for a minute or two in the middle of the evening.
Mrs Sartoris curled her lip. “Oh, she’s pretty enough,” she answered; “pretty enough, after her fashion. I could see that the first time; and she’s got nice manners. She lights up well, too; women of her age always do light up well. They look better by night, even in the searching glare of these electric lamps, than in full broad sunshine. But, of course, she hasn’t got quite the tone ofourset; you couldn’t expect it. A faded air of drapery clings about her to the end. That’s the way with these people; they may be ever so rich, they may be ever so fascinating—but a discriminating nose still scents trade in them somewhere.”
Will smiled a quiet smile of suppressed amusement. He didn’t care to answer her. Rue’s father, he knew, had been an episcopal clergyman in New York, and she herself, though she married a dry-goodsman, had been every bit as well brought up as Will and his sister. But ’tis a sisterly way to say these disparaging things about women whom one’s brother might be suspected of marrying. Will didn’t mean to marry Rue, it is true; but Maud thought he might; and that idea alone was more than enough to give a caustic tone to her critical comments.
The feature of the evening, it seemed, was to be a peculiarséanceof a new American phenomenon, who had come over to Europe with a wonderful reputation for thought-reading, hypnotism, and what he was pleased to style “magnetic influences.” Like most of her countrymen and countrywomen, Rue had a sneaking regard, in the background of her soul, for mesmerism, spiritualism, psychic force, electro-biology, and the occult and mysterious in human nature generally. She was one of those impressionable women, in short, who fall a ready prey to plausible impostors with voluble talk about ethereal vibrations, telepathic energy, the odic fluid, and the rest of such rubbish, unless strong-minded male friends intervene to prevent them. The medium on this occasion, it appeared, was one Joaquin Holmes, otherwise known as the Colorado Seer, who professed to read the inmost thoughts of man or woman by direct brainwaves, without contact of any sort. The guests that night had been specially invited to meet Mr Holmes on this his first appearance at aséancein London; so about ten o’clock, all the world trooped down to the dining-room, which Florian had cunningly arranged as a temporary lecture-hall, with seats in long rows, and an elevated platform at one end for the medium.
“What an odd-looking man!” Mrs Sartoris exclaimed, as the Colorado Seer, in full evening dress, bowed a graceful bow from his place on the platform. “He’s handsome, though, isn’t he? Such wonderful eyes! Just look! And such a Spanish complexion!”
“A Hidalgo, every inch!” Florian assented gravely, nodding his head, and looking at him as he would have looked at a Velasquez. “That olive-brown skin points back straight to Andalusia. It doesn’t want his name to tell one at a glance that if his father was an American of English descent, his mother’s folk must have emigrated from Cordova or Granada. I see a Moslem tinge in cheek and eye; those dusky thin fingers are the Moor all over!”
“For Moor, read blackamoor,” Colonel Quackenboss, the militaryattachéto the American Legation, murmured half under his breath to his next-door neighbour.
And they were each of them right, in his own way and fashion. The Colorado Seer was a very handsome man, somewhat swarthier than is usual with pure-blooded Europeans. His eyes were large and dark and brilliant; his abundant black hair fell loose over his brow with a graceful southern curl; a heavy moustache fringed his upper lip; he looked to the unsophisticated European eye like a pleasing cross between Buffalo Bill and a Castilian poet. But his Christian name of Joaquin and his southern skin had descended to him, not from Andalusian Hidalgos, but from a mother who was partly Spanish and partly negress, with a delicate under-current of Red Indian ancestry. As he stood there on the platform, however, in his becoming evening dress, and flooded them with the light of his lustrous dark eyes—’twas a trick of the trade he had learned in Colorado—every woman in the room felt instinctively to herself he was a superb creature, while every man admitted with a grudging smile that the fellow had at least the outward air of a gentleman.
The Seer, stepping forward with a genial smile, entertained them at first with some common little tricks of so-called thought-reading, familiar enough to all those who have ever attempted to watch the ways of that simple exhibition. He found pins concealed in ladies’ skirts, and guessed the numbers of bank-notes in financiers’ pockets. Florian’s mouth curled incredulity; why, these were just the same futile old games as ever, the well-known and innocent little conjuring dodges of the Bishops and the Stuart Cumberlands! But after awhile, Mr Joaquin Holmes, waking up all at once, proceeded to try something newer and more original. A pack of cards was produced. To avoid all suspicion of collusion or trickery, ’twas a brand-new pack—observe, there’s no deception—bought by Rue herself that afternoon in Bond Street. With much air of serious mystery, the Colorado Seer pulled off the stamped cover before their very eyes, gave the cards themselves to Will to shuffle, and then proceeded to offer them to every member of the company one by one in order. Each drew a card, looked at it, and replaced it in the pack. Instantly, the Seer in a very loud voice, without one moment’s hesitation, announced it correctly as ten of spades, ace of clubs, five of hearts, or queen of diamonds. It was an excellent trick, and the performer could do it equally well with open eyes or blindfolded; he could offer the cards behind his back, after the pack had been shuffled and handed him unseen; he could even succeed in the dark, he said, if the lights were lowered, and each person in the company took his own card out to inspect it in the passage.
“That looks like genuine thought-reading,” Will was compelled to admit, thinking it over in his own mind; “but perhaps he forces his cards. One knows conjurers can do such wonderful things in the way of forcing.”
Instantly the Seer turned upon him with an air of injured innocence. “If you think there’s any conjuring about this performance,” he exclaimed, with much dignity, drawing himself up to his full height of six feet two, “you can offer them yourself, and allow each lady and gentleman in the room to pick as they choose for themselves among them. I’ll take each card, blindfold, as fast as they pick, hold it up behind my back, with my hands tied, without seeing it myself, and read off for you what it is by direct thought-transference.”
Will accepted the test—a fairly severe one; and, sure enough, the Seer was right. Carefully blindfolded with one of those moulded wraps, invented for the purpose, which prevent all possibility of looking down through the chinks, he yet took each card behind his back in one hand, held it up before their eyes without moving his head, and gave out its name distinctly and instantly. The audience was impressed. There was a touch of magic in it. But the Seer smiled blandly.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” he murmured aloud, with a deprecating little laugh; “a mere matter of choosing between fifty-two alternatives—which, after all, is easy. With Mrs Palmer’s consent,” and he turned in a gracefully deferential attitude to Rue, “I can show you something a great deal more remarkable. Here are pencils and papers. Each lady or gentleman will please take a sheet as I hand them round. Write anything you like, in English, French, German or Spanish, on the piece of paper. Then fold it up, so, and put it into one of these envelopes gummed down and fastened. After that, as this experiment requires very great concentration of thought”—he knitted his brows, and assumed an expression of the intensest internal effort—“with Mrs Palmer’s kind leave, we will turn out the electric light, which confuses and distracts one by revealing to the eye so many surrounding visible objects. And then, without breaking the envelopes in which you have enclosed the pieces of paper, I will read out to you, in the dark, what each of you has written.”
He spoke deliberately, with slow western American distinctness, though with a pleasing accent. That accent, superimposed on his native negro dialect, had cost him no small effort. The guests, half-incredulous, took the sheets of paper he distributed to them one by one, and wrote down a sentence or two, according to taste, after a little interval of whispered consultation. Then, by the Seer’s direction, they folded the slips in two and placed them in their envelopes, each bearing outside the name of the person who wrote it. Florian collected the papers, all carefully gummed down, and handed them to the Seer, who stood ready to receive them at his place on the platform. Without one moment’s delay, the lights were turned out. It was the instantaneousness, indeed, and the utter absence of the usual hocus-pocus, that distinguished Mr Joaquin Holmes’s unique performance from the ordinary style of spiritualist conjuring. In a second, the Seer’s voice rang out clear from his place: “First envelope, Mrs Palmer, containing inscription in French—very prettily written:
‘La vie est brève:Un peu d’amour,Un peu de rêve,Et puis—bonjour.
‘La vie est brève:Un peu d’amour,Un peu de rêve,Et puis—bonjour.
‘La vie est brève:Un peu d’amour,Un peu de rêve,Et puis—bonjour.
‘La vie est brève:
Un peu d’amour,
Un peu de rêve,
Et puis—bonjour.
La vie est vaine:Un peu d’espoir,Un peu de haine,Et puis—bonsoir.’
La vie est vaine:Un peu d’espoir,Un peu de haine,Et puis—bonsoir.’
La vie est vaine:Un peu d’espoir,Un peu de haine,Et puis—bonsoir.’
La vie est vaine:
Un peu d’espoir,
Un peu de haine,
Et puis—bonsoir.’
“Extremely graceful verses; I don’t know the author. However, no matter! . . . Second envelope, Colonel Marchmont, containing inscription in English, ‘The general immediately ordered an advance, and the gallant 21st, regardless of danger, charged for the battery in magnificent style, sabring the enemy’s gunners in a wild outburst of military enthusiasm.’ Very characteristic! A most soldierly choice. And boldly written. . . . Third envelope, Mrs Sartoris,—stop, please! the lady’s thoughts are wandering; kindly fix your attention for a moment, Madam, on the words you have given me. Ah, so; that’s better.—‘The curfew tolls the knell of parting day; The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea; The ploughman homeward wends’—wends? wends? it should have been ‘plods’; but ‘wends’ is what you thought—‘The ploughman homeward wends his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.’ Very appropriate; it’s dark enough here! And I am the only speaker. Bend your minds to what you have written, please, or I may have to hesitate. Each think of your own. . . . Fourth envelope, Mr Florian Wood, containing inscription:
‘We struggle fain to enlargeOur bounded physical recipiency,Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,Repair the waste of age and sickness: no,It skills not! life’s inadequate to joy,As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take.’
‘We struggle fain to enlargeOur bounded physical recipiency,Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,Repair the waste of age and sickness: no,It skills not! life’s inadequate to joy,As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take.’
‘We struggle fain to enlargeOur bounded physical recipiency,Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,Repair the waste of age and sickness: no,It skills not! life’s inadequate to joy,As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take.’
‘We struggle fain to enlarge
Our bounded physical recipiency,
Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,
Repair the waste of age and sickness: no,
It skills not! life’s inadequate to joy,
As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take.’
An exceedingly appropriate quotation! I forget where it comes from. Try to concentrate your mind, Mr Wood. Ah, now I know!—from Browning’sCleon.”
Florian’s mellifluous voice broke the silence in the auditory. “This is wonderful!” he said, in his impressive tone, “most wonderful! miraculous! I never heard anything in my life to equal it.”
The Seer, noting his advantage, didn’t pause for a moment to answer the interruption, but, smiling a self-satisfied though invisible smile, which could be heard in his voice in spite of the dense darkness, went on still more rapidly, “Fifth envelope, Lady Martindale, a familiar quotation, ‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.’ Somewhat hackneyed that, but easy enough to read on her brain for that very reason. . . . Sixth envelope, Sir Henry Martindale—I regret to say, a confirmed sceptic; Sir Henry didn’t believe I could read his thoughts, so he wrote down these rude words: ‘The performance is a sham, and the man’s a humbug.’ But the performance is not a sham, and the man’s a thought-reader. Sir Henry also wrote three words below in the Russian character, which he learnt in the Crimea. Now, I don’t know Russian, and I can’t pretend to read thoughts in languages I don’t understand, any more than I could pretend to repeat a conversation I happened to overhear on top of an omnibus in Japanese or Hottentot. But I can tell Sir Henry what he thought in English as he wrote those words; he thought to himself, ‘That’s a puzzler for him, that is; I’ll bet five quid that’ll beat the fellow.’ ”
The audience laughed at this unexpected sally. Sir Henry felt uncomfortable. But the Seer, unabashed, went on as before, without an instant’s pause, to the succeeding envelopes. He ran through them all in the same rapid manner, till he reached the last, “Miss Violet Farrar,—kindly concentrate your thoughts on the subject, Señorita,—Miss Farrar wrote a couple of lines from Swinburne:
‘Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,But the world shall end when I forget.’
‘Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,But the world shall end when I forget.’
‘Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,But the world shall end when I forget.’
‘Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,
But the world shall end when I forget.’
That’s the last I received!” He drew a deep sigh. Then without one instant interposed, “Turn up the lights, please,” he said. “To show all’s fair, I’ll return you your envelopes.”
Will turned the light on again in a turmoil of surprise. He had never before seen anything that looked so like a genuine miracle. There stood the Seer, erect and smiling, with all the envelopes in a huddled heap on the little round table on the platform beside him. With a quiet air of triumph, he stepped down to the floor, and reading out the names as he walked along the rows, replaced in each outstretched hand—its own envelope, unopened. The visitors tore the covers off before his eyes, and found inside—their own manuscript, exactly as they had written it. It was a most convincing trick, and the Colorado Seer had good cause to be proud of the astounded way in which his company received it.
A buzz of voices ran humming round the room for some minutes together as the Seer concluded. Everybody hazarded some conjecture of his own, more or less inept, as to how the man did it. The younger ladies were mostly of opinion that he “must have a confederate”—though how a confederate could help him with this particular trick, they didn’t deign to explain, not having, indeed, any clear picture of their own in their sapient heads as to the nature of the confederacy. They merely threw out the hint in the self-same expansive and generous spirit in which they are wont to opine that “it’s done by electricity,” or, that “the thing has springs in it.” Mr Arthur Sartoris, the East End curate, and two old maids with amiable profiles in a back row, were inclined to set it down to “cerebral undulations in the ethereal medium”—which, of course, would be competent to explain almost anything, if they only existed. Lady Martindale leaned rather towards the extremer view that “the man had dealings with a familiar spirit,” and objected to take any further part in such doubtful proceedings. Sir Henry, while not venturing to offer any direct explanation, was yet reminded at once of some very remarkable and surprising feats he had seen performed by a fakir in India, who had told him the name of his future wife, made a mango-tree grow and bear fruit before his eyes, and sent a boy to climb up a loose end of twine till he disappeared in space, whence he was precipitated in fragments a few minutes later, to get up and walk away one moment afterwards, at the first touch of the fakir’s wand, as cool and unconcerned as if nothing had happened. Everybody had a theory which satisfied himself; and every theory alike seemed pure bosh to Will Deverill.
To everybody’s surprise, however, Florian’s melodious voice, after that one interruption, took no further part in the brisk discussion. The world rather expected that Florian would intervene with some abstruse hypothesis of telepathic action, or enlarge on the occult influence of soul upon soul, without the need for any gross and palpable link of material connection. But Florian held his peace. He had an idea of his own, and he wasn’t going to impart it for nothing to anybody. Only once did he speak. “The man has eyes in the back of his head,” a lady had cried after one trick in profound astonishment.
“Say, rather, the man has eyes in the tips of his fingers,” Florian corrected gravely. For he was no fool, Florian.
The Seer heard him, and darted a strange glance at his face. This man Wood was too clever. The Seer must square him!
The evening wore away, and conjecture died down. The Seer mixed with the throng in his private capacity, told good stories to the men with a strong Western flavour, said pretty things to the women with Parisian grace, and flashed his expressive eyes into theirs to point them. Everybody allowed he was a most agreeable man, and everybody thought his performance “simply marvellous.”
Florian waited on the door-step as the Seer was leaving. “I’ll walk home with you,” he said, with an air of quiet determination.
The Seer stared at him hard. “As you like,” he answered, coldly; but it was clear from his tone he distrusted Florian.
They walked round the corner for some yards in silence. Then Florian spoke first. “There was only one thing I didn’t quite understand,” he began, with a confidential air, “and that was how the dickens you managed to get those gummed envelopes open.”
The Seer stood still for a second, and fronted him. They were in a lonely street. “Now, you look here, Mr Florian Wood,” the American said quietly, dropping back all at once into his native dialect and his native accent, “you lay low this evening. You thought you spotted it. I saw you lay low, and I knew pretty well you meant to come round and have it out some time with me. Well, sir, what do you mean by insinuating to a gentleman like me that I broke those there envelopes? That’s an imputation on my honesty and honour; and out West, you know, we answer questions like that only one way . . . with a six-shooter.”
He spoke with the menacing air of an angry bully. But Florian wasn’t exactly the sort of man to be bullied; small as he was, he did not lack for courage. If Mr Joaquin Holmes was tall and big-built, why, Florian was backed up by all the strength of the police of London. The Englishman smiled. “Yes, you do, out West, I know,” he answered, calmly; “but in London, that style’s very much out of fashion. We keep a police force on purpose to prevent it. Now, don’t let’s be two fools. I lay low, as you say. If you want me to go on lying low in future, you’ll answer me sensibly, like a man of the world, and trust my honour. If you want me to expose you, you’ll tell lies and bluster. You’ve had twenty pounds down from my friend Mrs Palmer for this evening’s entertainment. That’s first-rate pay. You can’t earn it again, if your system’s blown upon.”
The Coloradan darted a furtive side-glance at Florian. This sleek-faced, innocent-looking, high-flown little Englishman was more dangerous, after all, than the Westerner imagined. But he blustered still for a while about his honour and his honesty; he was ashamed to throw up the sponge so easily. Florian listened, unmoved. All this talk fell flat upon him. At last, when the Seer had exhausted his whole stock of available indignation, Florian interposed once more, bland and suave as ever: “It’s a very good trick,” the small man said, smiling, “and I don’t know how you managed that part about the envelopes. . . . Besides, I never met such delicacy of touch in my life before—in a sighted person!”
At that word, Joaquin Holmes gave a perceptible start. He saw its implications. It is the term which the blind in asylums or the like invariably apply to the outside world with normal vision.
Florian noticed the little start, all involuntary as it was; and the Seer in turn observed that he noticed it. No man can play the thought-reading or spiritualist game unless endowed with exceptional quickness of perception.
“How did you know I’d ever been blind?” he asked, quickly, taken aback for a moment, and making just that once an unguarded admission.
“Ididn’tknow it,” Florian answered, with equal frankness. “I didn’t even guess it. But I saw at once you’d at least been bred and brought up among the blind. My own grandfather was blind, you see, and my uncle as well; and I’ve inherited from them, myself, some germs of the same faculty. But you’ve got it stronger than anyone I ever saw in my life till now. . . . Besides, I want to know how you managed those envelopes. I hate being baffled. When I see a good trick, I like to understand it. Remember, I have influence in the press and in Society. I can serve your purpose. But I make it the price of my lying low in future that you tell me the way you managed about the envelopes.”
The Seer seized his arm. “You’re a durned smart chap,” he said, with genuine admiration. “Nobody, even in America, ever guessed that trick; and we’re smarter out there, I reckon, than the run of the old country. Come along to my rooms, and we’ll talk this thing over.”
“No thank you,” Florian answered, with a quiet little smile. “My friends wouldn’t know where I’d gone to-night. Your hint about six-shooters is quite too pregnant. But if you care to come home to my humble chambers in Grosvenor Gardens, and make terms of surrender, we can see this thing out over a whiskey and soda.”
They walked on, side by side, to the house in Grosvenor Gardens. Florian let himself in with a latch-key, and rang the bell for his servant. While he waited, he wrote a name on the back of a card, carelessly. “Look here, Barnes,” the butterfly of Society said, as his eminently respectable man-of-all-work entered; “this is Mr Joaquin Holmes,”—and he handed him the card—“you can read the name there. He comes from America. I particularly desire you to remark Mr Joaquin Holmes’s appearance and features. You may be called upon to identify him.” Then he turned with his bland smile to the discomfited Seer, and observed, in that unfailingly honeyed voice of his, “You must excuse me, Mr Holmes, but as a gentleman from out West, addicted to the frequent use of the six-shooter, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the delicacy of my motives for this little precaution. You can go now, Barnes. A mere matter of form, so that, in case your evidence should be needed in court, you’ll be able to swear to Mr Holmes’s identity, and give evidence that he was here, in my company, this evening.”
Barnes glanced at the card, and retired to the door, discreetly. The Seer flung himself down in an easy-chair with true Westernsangfroid. He knew he was detected; but he wasn’t going to give up the game so soon, without seeing how much Florian really understood of his secret and his methods. Meanwhile, Florian produced a couple of pretty little old-fashioned stoneware jugs and some Venetian glasses from a dainty corner cupboard. A siphon stood on a Moorish tray at his side by the carved Bombay black-wood fireplace. “Caledonian or Hibernian?” Florian asked, turning to his visitor, with his most charming smile—“I mean, Scotch or Irish?”
“Thanks, Scotch,” the Coloradan answered, relaxing his muscles a little, as he began to enter into the spirit of his entertainer’s humour.
Florian poured it out gracefully, and touched the knob of the siphon. Then he handed it, foaming, still bland as ever, to the hesitating American. “Now, let’s be frank with one another, Mr Holmes,” he said, with cheerful promptitude. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re a very smart man, and I admire your smartness. I lay low to-night, as you justly observed, and I’m game to lie low—if you’ll take my terms—in future. I’m not going to blow upon you, and I’m not going to stand in the way of your success in life; but I just want to know—how did you manage those envelopes?”
“If you think it’s a trick, why, the envelopes would be a long chalk the easiest part of it,” the Seer responded, with a dry little cough. “The real difficulty, of course, would be to read in the dark what folks had written. And that’s the part, I claim, that I do myself by pure force of thought—in short, by psychic transference.”
He stared hard at his host. Their eyes met searchingly. It was seldom that Florian did a vulgar or ungraceful thing; but, as Mr Joaquin Holmes uttered those high-sounding words, and looked him straight in the face with great solemnity, Florian gravely winked at him. Then he raised that priceless Venetian glass goblet to his curling lips, took a long pull at the whiskey without speaking a word, and went over to a desk by the big front window. From it he took out a pack of cards, and returned with them in his hand. “Shuffle them,” he said, briefly, to the uneasy Seer, in his own very tone. And the American shuffled them.
Florian picked one out at random, and held it before him, face down, for some seconds in silence. “Now, I can’t do this trick like you,” he said, in a very business-like voice; “but I can do it a little. Only, I’m obliged to feel the card all over with my fingers like this; and I’m often not right as to the names of the suits, though I can generally make a good shot at the pips and numbers. This is a three that I’ve drawn—I think, the three of spades; but it may be clubs—I don’t feel quite certain.”
He turned it up. Sure enough, it was a three, but of clubs not spades. “I’ll try another,” he said, unabashed. And he drew one and felt it.
“This is a nine of diamonds,” he continued, more confidently, after a moment’s pause. The American took it from him, without turning up its face, drew his forefinger almost imperceptibly over the unexposed side, and answered without hesitation, “Yes; you’re right—that’s it—the nine of diamonds.”
Florian pulled out a third, and felt it again carefully with the tips of his fingers. “It’s a picture card this time,” he went on: “King, Queen, or Knave of Hearts, I’m not sure which. I’m no good at picture cards. They’re all a blur to me. I can tell them only by the single pips in the corners.”
The Seer took it from him, hardly touching it perceptibly. “That’s not a heart!” he answered in a sharp voice, without a second’s hesitation; “that’s the Jack of Spades! You’re right as to the general shape, but you’ve neglected the handle.”
He turned it up as he spoke. The Knave of Spades indeed it was. Florian corrected him solemnly.
“In good English society,” he murmured, still polite and still inscrutable, “we say Knave, not Jack. Remember that in future. To call it a Jack’s an odious vulgarism. I merely mention this fact because I notice how cleverly you’ve managed to acquire the exact little tricks of accent and manner which are sure to take with an English audience. I should be sorry to think a man of your brains, and a man of your moral character—positive or negative—should be thought the less of in this town of London for so very unimportant a matter of detail.”
“Thank you,” the Seer responded quietly, with another searching look. “I believe, Mr Florian Wood, we two understand each other. But mind you”—and he looked very wise and cunning—“I didn’t pass my finger over the cards at Mrs Palmer’s.”
“So I saw,” Florian replied, with unabated good-humour. “But I looked at them close—and I noticed they were squeezers. What’s more, I observed you took them always by the left-hand corner (which was the right hand, upside down) whenever they were passed to you. That gave me the clue. I saw you could read, with one touch of your finger, the number and suit marked small in the corner. I recognised how you did it, though I couldn’t come near it myself. Your sense of touch must be something simply exquisite.”
The American’s mouth curled gently at the corners. Those words restored his confidence. He took up a casual book from the table at his side—’twas the first edition of Andrew Lang’s “Ballades in Blue China”—for Florian, as a man of taste, adored first editions. “Look here,” the Seer said, carelessly. He turned it face downwards and opened it at random. Then, passing one finger almost imperceptibly over the face of a page, he began to read, as fast as the human voice can go, the very first verses he chanced to light upon.
“Ballade of Primitive Man.”“He lived in a cave by the seas;He lived upon oysters and foes;But his list of forbidden degreesAn extensive morality shews.Geological evidence goesTo prove he had never a pan,But he shaved with a shell when he chose.’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.”
“Ballade of Primitive Man.”“He lived in a cave by the seas;He lived upon oysters and foes;But his list of forbidden degreesAn extensive morality shews.Geological evidence goesTo prove he had never a pan,But he shaved with a shell when he chose.’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.”
“Ballade of Primitive Man.”“He lived in a cave by the seas;He lived upon oysters and foes;But his list of forbidden degreesAn extensive morality shews.Geological evidence goesTo prove he had never a pan,But he shaved with a shell when he chose.’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.”
“Ballade of Primitive Man.”
“He lived in a cave by the seas;
He lived upon oysters and foes;
But his list of forbidden degrees
An extensive morality shews.
Geological evidence goes
To prove he had never a pan,
But he shaved with a shell when he chose.
’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.”
He read it like print. Florian leaned back in his chair, clasped his dainty hands on his small breast before him, and stared at the Seer in unaffected astonishment. “I knew you did it that way,” he said, after a pause, nodding his head once or twice; “I felt sure that was the trick of it; but now I see you do it, why, it’s more wonderful, almost, than if it were nothing more than a mere ordinary miracle. Miracles are cheap; but sleight of hand like this—well, it’s priceless, priceless!”
“Now,you’rea man of honour,” the Seer said, leaning forward anxiously. “You’ve found me out, fair and square, and I don’t deny it. But you’re not going to round on me and spoil my business, are you? It’s taken me years and years to work up this sense by constant practice; and if I thought you were going to cut in right now, and peach upon me—why, hanged if I don’t think, witness or no witness, I’d settle this thing still, straight off, with a six-shooter. Yes, sir—r—r, I’d settle it straight off, I would, and let ’em scrag me if they would for it!”
Florian stirred the fire languidly with a contemplative poker (a poker’s a very good weapon to fall back upon, one knows, in case of necessity). “That’d be a pity,” he drawled out calmly, in an unconcerned voice. “I wouldn’t like you to make such a nasty mess on my Damascus carpet. This is a real old Damascus, observe, and I paid fifty guineas for it. It’s a nice one, isn’t it? Good colour, good pattern! Besides, as you say, I’m a man of honour. And I’ve a fellow-feeling, too—being clever myself—for all other clever fellows. I’ve promised you not to peach, if only you’ll tell me how you managed those envelopes. That’s a mere bit of ordinary everyday conjuring; it’s nothing to the skill and practice required to read, as you do, with the tips of your fingers.”
The Seer drew a long breath, and passed his dark hand wearily across his high brown forehead.
“That’s so!” he answered, with a sigh. “You may well say that.” Then he dropped spontaneously into his own Western manner. “See here, stranger,” he said, eyeing Florian hard, and laying one heavy hand on his entertainer’s arm; “it’s bred in the bone with me to some extent; but all the same, it’s cost me fifteen years of practice to develop it. I come of a blind family, I do; father was blind, and mother as well; made their match up at the Indiana State Asylum. Grandfather was blind in mother’s family, and two aunts in father’s.Iwas born sighted; but at five year old I was taken with the cataract. They weren’t any great shakes at the cataract in Colorado where I was raised; I was fifteen year old before they tried to couch it. So I learned to read first with embossed print on Grandfather’s old blind Boston Bible. I learned to read first-rate; that was as easy as A.B.C., for the tips of my fingers were always sensitive. I learnt to make mats a bit, too, and to weave in colours. Weaving in colours develops the sensitiveness of the nerves in the hand; you get to distinguish the different strands by the feel, and to know whereabouts you’re up to in the pattern.”
“And at fifteen you recovered your sight?” Florian murmured reflectively, still grasping the poker.
“Yes, sir—r—r; at fifteen they took me to New York and got my eyes couched there. As soon as ever I could see, I began to learn more things still with the tips of my fingers; my eyes sort of helped me to interpret what I felt with them. Pretty soon I saw there was money in this thing. People in Colorado didn’t care to play poker with me; they found out I’d a wonderful notion what was printed on a card by just drawing my finger, like this, over the face of it. I see you’re a straight man, and haven’t got many prejudices; so I don’t mind telling you now my first idea was to go in for handling the cards as a profession. However, I soon caught on that that wasn’t a good game; people in our section observed how I worked it, and it was apt to lead in the end to bowies and other unpleasantness. Several unpleasantnesses occurred, in fact, in Denver City, before I retired from that branch of the business. So then I began to reflect this thought-reading trick would come in more handy; one might do a bit at the cards now and again for a change; but if one tried it too often, it might land one at last in free quarters at the public expense; and the thought-reading’s safer and more gentlemanly any way. So I worked at learning to read, as time afforded, till I could read a printed book as easy with my fingers as I could read it with my eyes. It took me ten years, I guess, to bring that trick to perfection.”
“You made us write with a pencil, I noticed,” Florian interposed, with a knowing smile. “That’s easier to read, of course, for a pencil digs in so.”
The Seer regarded him with no small admiration. “You’re a smart man, and no mistake, sir,” he answered, emphatically. “That’s just how I do it. I read it from the back, where it’s raised into furrows, in relief as it were, by the digging-in; I read it backwards. I gave ’em each a pad with the paper, you may have noticed. That pad supplies just the right amount of resistance. I had to stop once or twice to-night, where I couldn’t read a sentence, and fill in the space meanwhile with a little bit of patter about concentrating their thoughts upon it, and that sort of nonsense. Mrs Sartoris’s hand was precious hard to decipher, and there was one young lady who pressed so light, she almost licked me.”
“And the envelopes?” Florian asked once more.
The Seer smiled disdainfully. “Why, that’s nothing,” he answered, with a contemptuous curl of the lip. “Any fool could do that; it’s as easy as lying. The lower side-flap of the envelopes is hardly fastened at all, with just a pin’s head of gum,”—he drew one from his pocket—“See here,” he said; “it’s got a bit left dry to wet and fasten afterwards. I draw out the paper, so, and read it with my finger; then I push it back, gum down again, and pull out the next one. It’s the rapidity that tells, and it’s that that takes so many years of practice.”
“But Browning’sCleon?” Florian exclaimed. “And Sir Henry Martindale’s having learnt the Russian character in the Crimea? He told me it was there he picked it up himself. How on earth did you get at those, now?”
The Seer stretched out his legs with a self-satisfied smirk, and took a pull at his whiskey. “See here, my dear sir,” he said, stroking his smooth chin placidly; “a man don’t succeed in these walks of life unless he’s got somenousin him to start with. He’s bound to observe, and remember, and infer, a good deal; he’s bound to have an eye for character, and be a reader of faces. Now, it happens you wrote those self-same lines in Mrs Palmer’s album; and I chanced to read them there while I waited for her in the drawing-room this very morning. A man’s got to be smart, you bet, and look out for coincidences, if he’s going to do much in occult science to astonish the public. Well, I’ve noticed every one has certain pet quotations of his own, which he uses frequently; and you’d be surprised to find how often the same quotation turns up, time after time, in these psychical experiments. ‘The curfew tolls the knell,’ or, ‘Not a drum was heard,’ are pretty sure to be given six times out of seven that one holds aséance. But yours was a new one; so I learnt it by heart, and observed you set it down to Browning’sCleon. As for the Russian character—well, where was an English officer likely to learn it except in the Crimea? That was risky, of course; I might have been mistaken; but one bad shot don’t count against you, while a good one carries conviction straight off to the mind of your subject.”
Florian paused, and considered. Before the end of the evening, indeed, he had learnt a good many things about the trade of prophet; and Mr Joaquin Holmes had taken, incidentally, every drop as much whiskey as was good for his constitution. When at last he rose to go, he clasped Florian’s delicate hand hard. “You’re a straight man, I believe, stranger,” he said, significantly, “and I’m sure you’re a smart one. But mind this from me, Mr Florian Wood, if ever you round on me, Colorado or London, the six-shooter’ll settle it.”
Florian smiled, and pressed his hand. “I don’t carethatfor your six-shooter,” he answered, calmly, with a resonant snap of his tiny left forefinger. “But I don’t want to spoil a man’s prospects in life, when he’s taken fifteen years to make a consummate rogue of himself. You’re perfect in your way, Mr Holmes, and I adore perfection. If ever I breathe a single word of this to my dearest friend—well, I give you free leave to whip out that six-shooter you’re so fond of bragging about.”
Among the minor successes of that London season, all the world reckoned the Colorado Seer’s Psycho-physical Entertainment at the Assyrian Hall in Bond Street, and Will Deverill’s dainty operetta, “Honeysuckle,” at the Duke of Edinburgh’s Theatre in Long Acre. The Seer, indeed, had been well advertised beforehand by theMorning Postand other London dailies, which gave puffs preliminary of his marvellous performance, “as privately exhibited to a select audience at Mrs Palmer’s charming and hospitable residence in Hans Place, Chelsea.” A well-known society writer, with a lingering love of the occult and the supernatural, saw in Mr Joaquin Holmes’s abstruse gifts “a genuine case of Second Sight, and a curious modern parallel to the most famous feats of the Delphic oracle and the Indian Yogis.” TheSpectatorsuggested in a learned article that “Mahatmas were about”; theDaily Newsaverred that “Nothing like Mr Holmes’s extraordinary powers had been seen on earth since the Egyptian magicians impiously counterfeited the miracles of Moses and Aaron before the throne of Pharaoh.” Every one of the accounts particularly insisted on the presence at the first trial of Mr Florian Wood, the distinguished musical and dramatic critic; whose inmost thoughts the Seer had read offhand like an open book, and whose quotations from little-known and unpopular sources he had instantly assigned to their proper origin. But when Florian himself was questioned on the subject, he shook his head with an air of esoteric knowledge, put two soft white fingers to his delicate lips, and smiled mysteriously. To say the truth, Florian loved a mystery. It flattered his sense of personal importance. Nay, he would almost have joined Mr Joaquin Holmes as a confederate in his little tricks for pure love of mystification, were it not for a wholesome and restraining dread that others might find them out as he himself had done. So the Seer, thus well and cheaply advertised by anticipation, made a hit for the moment, as dozens of such quacks have done before and since, from Home and Bishop to the Little Georgia Magnet.
As for Will Deverill’s play, the first night was crowded. All London was there, in the sense that the Savage, the Garrick, and the Savile give to all London. Rue had taken tickets for stalls with reckless extravagance, and bestowed them right and left, as if on the author’s behalf, to every influential soul among her fine acquaintance. Florian whipped up a fair number of first-nighters of the literary clique, and not a few great ladies from Belgravia drawing-rooms. The audience was distinctly and decidedly favourable. But not all the packed houses that ever were can save a bad play, if bad it is, from condign damnation. The incorruptible pit and the free and independent electors of the gallery are no respecters of persons, in their critical capacity. Fortunately, however, as it happened, Will’s play was a good one. It didn’t take the audience by storm at the first hearing, but it pleased and satisfied them. One or two of the melodies had a catchy ring; one or two of the scenes were both brilliant and pathetic. The house encored all the principal tunes; and when the curtain fell on virtue triumphant, in the person ofHoneysuckle, vociferous cries arose on every side for “Author! Author!”
Will sat in a stage box, throughout the whole performance, with Florian, Rue, his sister, Mrs Sartoris, and her husband, the amiable East End curate. It was a three-act piece. As far as the end of the second act, Maud Sartoris was delighted; it was a distinct success, and Rue was very well pleased. Maud thought that was good; after all, whether she “smelt of drapery” or not, it’s well for one’s brother to produce a favourable impression on a woman with a fortune of seven hundred thousand. But the third act, she felt sure, was distinctly inferior to the two that preceded it. She said as much to Rue, while Will, trembling with excitement from head to foot, slipped off to make his expected bow before the curtain.
At those words of hers, Rue turned pale. She had thought so all through, though she would hardly acknowledge it, even to herself, and she feared in her own heart she knew the reason. Could Will have written the first two acts during those happy days when his head was stuffed full of Linnet at Meran, and gone on with the third in a London lodging after he learned of her marriage to Andreas Hausberger? Rue more than half-suspected that obvious explanation—forHoneysucklewas Linnet—and the thought disquieted her.
“You’re quite right,” Florian interposed, with his airy eloquence. “The first two acts are good—distinctly good. Will wrote them in the Tyrol. The third’s a poor thing—mere fluff and feather: oh, what a falling off was there! It was written in London! But who can sing aright of Arcady in the mud of Mayfair? Who can sing of Zion by the willows of Babylon? Will drew his first inspiration from the sparkling air of Meran; it faded like a mist with the mists of the Channel.”
“The audience doesn’t seem to think so,” Rue put in, somewhat anxiously, as a hearty round of applause greeted Will by the footlights. “They feel it’s all right. They’re evidently satisfied, on the whole, with the nature of thedénoument.”
“If you look at the papers to-morrow morning,” Florian answered, carelessly, “you’ll find every candid critic disagrees with the audience and agrees with Mrs Sartoris. But what matter for that! It’s a very good play, with some very good tunes in it; and the actors have made it. I really didn’t think our dear friend Will could do anything so good—till I saw it interpreted. I call the reception, on the whole, most promising.”
Rue felt positively annoyed that Florian should speak so condescendingly of Will’s beautiful music. He damned it with faint praise, while Rue herself felt for it a genuine enthusiasm. For she knew it was good,—all except that third act,—and even there she saw touches of really fine composition.
In a minute or two more, Will came back to them, radiant. Florian boarded him at once. “Ten thousand congratulations, dear boy,” he cried, affectedly. “We’re all delighted. Laurel wreaths for the victor! Bays drape your lute. Everybody’s been saying the first two acts are a triumphal progress, though the third, we agree, fails to sustain the attention—flags in interest somewhat.”
Will coloured up to his eyes. Rue noted the blush; her heart sank at sight of it. “I knew it was weak myself,” he admitted, a little shamefacedly. “The inspiration died down. Perhaps it was natural. You see, Maud,” he went on, turning round to his sister as to a neutral person, and avoiding Rue’s eye, “I wrote and composed the first two acts at Innsbruck and Meran, under the immediate influence of the Tyrolese air and the Tyrolese music; they welled up in me in the midst of peasant songs and cow-bells. The third act, I had to manufacture at my rooms in Craven Street. Surroundings, of course, make a deal of difference to this sort of thing. I wasinthe key there, andoutof it in London. Pumped-up poetry and pumped-up music are poor substitutes after all for the spontaneous article.”
He didn’t dare to look at Rue as he spoke those words. He was conscious all the while, let him boggle as he might, that sheknewthe real reason for the failure of thedénoument. And he was conscious, too, though he was a modest man, that Rue would feel hurt at the effect Linnet’s marriage had had upon his music. As for Rue herself, poor girl, her face was crimson. To think she should have done so much, and wronged her modesty so far with Mr Wildon Blades to get Will’s operetta put on the stage that evening; to think she should have risked her own money to ensure its success, and then to find it owed its inspiration wholly and solely to the charms of her peasant rival, Linnet! Rue was more than merely vexed; she was shamed and humiliated. Will’s triumph was turned for her into gall and bitterness. His heart, after all, was still fixed on his cow-girl!
They drove home together in Rue’s luxurious brougham to Hans Place, Chelsea—Mr Sartoris and Florian following close in a hansom. The party were engaged to sup at Rue’s. Florian had invited them, indeed, to a banquet at Romano’s, as more strictly in keeping with the evening’s entertainment; but Maud Sartoris had objected to such a plan as “improper,” and likely to damage dear Arthur’s prospects. So at Rue’s they supped. But, in spite of Will’s success, and his health which they drank in Rue’s finest champagne, with musical honours, the party somehow lacked go and spirit. Will was dimly conscious in his own soul of having unwittingly behaved rather ill to Rue; Rue was dimly conscious of harbouring some deep-seated but indefinite resentment towards Will and Linnet. It was some consolation, at least, to know that the girl was now decently married and done for; sooner or later, for certain, such a man as Will Deverill was sure to get over a mere passing fancy for a handsome up-standing Tyrolese peasant-girl.
After supper, Will Deverill and the Sartorises went home in a party. But Florian lingered late. This was an excellent opportunity. Rue was annoyed with Will, and therefore all the more likely to accept another suitor. He gazed around the room—that little palace of art he had decorated with such care for his soul to dwell in. “Upon my word, Rue,” he murmured at last, after some desultory talk, glancing around him complacently, “I’m proud of this place; I never knew before what a decorator I was. It’s simply charming.” He gazed at her fixedly. “It’s the sweetest home in all London,” he went on in a rapt voice, “and it’s inhabited by the sweetest and brightest creature in the whole of Christendom. I sometimes think, Rue, as I gaze round this house, how happy I should be—if I too lived in it.”
For a moment, Rue stared at him without quite understanding what he meant to convey by this singular intimation. Then all at once it flashed across her. In spite of her distress, a smile stole over her face. She held out her hand frankly. “Good night, Florian,” she said, in a very decided tone. “Let me urge upon you to be content with your chambers in Pimlico. You’re a delightful and always most amusing friend; I hope you’re not going to make your friendship impossible for me. I like you very much, in your own sort of way; but if ever you re-open that subject again, . . . I’m afraid I could give you no further opportunity of admiring your own handicraft in this pretty little house of mine. That’s why I say good-night to you now so plainly. It’s best to be plain—best to understand one another, once for all, and for ever.”
Two minutes later, a dejected creature named Florian Wood found himself walking disconsolate, with his umbrella up, on the sloppy wet flags of ill-lighted Sloane Street. He had sustained a loss of seven hundred thousand pounds on a turn of fortune’s wheel, at an inauspicious moment. And Rue, with her face in her hands by the fire, was saying to herself with many tears and sighs that, Linnet or no Linnet, she never would and never could love anyone in the world except that dear Will Deverill.