The four men, puzzled at her demeanour, grouped themselves round her. She assured herself of their gravity.
“This evening,” she began, “between five and six o’clock I suddenly developed a dreadful headache. It was so bad that I just had to go to my room and lie down. I went to sleep straight off. And then—then I had a—a dream—only,” she interposed quickly, to hold their interest, “it wasn’t like an ordinary dream. It was so vivid that I felt all the time itmeantsomething. I dreamed that someone or something that I could feel was sort of loving and kind and earnest—veryearnest, I could feel that strongly—took me into a room. And, somehow, I knew that the room was in Berlin. It seemed quite a nice room but I don’t remember much about the details of it. I only remember that I saw myself there with two men, one young and dark, the other old and white, who were staring at a girl sleeping in a big armchair. They took not the faintest notice of me, and I didn’t worry much about them. The girl was the interesting thing to all of us—and yet, though I was staring at her with a sort of fascination I couldn’t shake off, I didn’t know why. Then a strange thing happened. The girl kind of faded away—I don’t know how to describe it, because I felt all the time she was still there—and as she faded, there came up the figure of a man. He seemed to grow out of her—to take her place. It was real uncanny. This man that grew out of the girl like a—like a ghost—was somehow morelivingthan any of us. It was as if he were in the limelight and we were in the shadow. I shall never forget his face. It was handsome butwicked—mocking—malicious—like a devil. And he had an ugly scar over the right eyebrow which made him look even more devilish——”
“What colour was his hair?” interposed Captain Sergeantson. “Any moustache?”
The girl looked at him in surprise at the question.
“Fair—sticking up straight. No moustache—why?”
Captain Sergeantson nodded.
“I only wondered. Go on, Miss Forsdyke.”
The girl resumed.
“Well—it seemed that we were all looking at this man and not the girl at all. She had disappeared behind him, or into him, I don’t know which. The other two men were talking to him—talking earnestly. And it seemed to me that it was extremely—oh,immensely—important that I should understand what they were saying. I listened with all my soul. It almost hurt me to listen as hard as I did—And yet I couldn’t get a word of it. What they said was, somehow, just out of reach—like people you see talking on the bioscope. And then, all of a sudden, I heard—one sentence—as clearly as possible, ‘Forsdyke is the man who prepares the schedule!’”
Jimmy Lomax uttered a sharp cry of amazement.
“What!” He turned to Forsdyke. “Chief, that’s strange!”
Forsdyke imposed silence with a gesture.
“Go on, Hetty,” he said, calmly. “What then?”
“Then I woke up. The words were ringing in my ears. They haunted me all the time I was dressing for dinner. I wondered if I ought to tell you. Something was whispering to me that I should. But I was afraid you would laugh at me. But that’s not all. You remember at dinner I dropped a glass.—Poppa!” Her voice suddenly became very earnest. “I saw that man—the man who had grown out of the girl—standing behind you. His eyes were fixed on you as though trying to read into you—so evilly that I went cold all over.”
The Professor gave her a sharp glance.
“No vision of the room in Berlin—or wherever it was?” he queried.
She shook her head.
“No. Just the man. But even that’s not all. Just now—when I was playing and looking across to you—I distinctly saw him again, close behind Poppa! He moved this time—moved with a funny little limp—just like a real man with a bad leg. I jumped up—and—and he was gone!” She looked around apprehensively as though expecting to see him still.
“Your liver’s out of order, my dear,” said her father. “Take a pill when you go to bed to-night.”
“No,” said the girl, “it’s not that. I know you would say I was ill—that is why I asked the Professor to examine me. I am sure itmeanssomething!”
Captain Sergeantson threw the end of his cigar into the fireplace and took a wallet out of his pocket. The wallet contained photographs. He handed them to the girl.
“Miss Forsdyke,” he said, gravely, “would you mind telling me if you have ever seen any of these people?”
The girl examined them. Suddenly she uttered a cry and held up one of the prints.
“This!” she said. Her eyes were wide with astonishment. “This is the man I saw!—There’s the scar, too—exactly!—Who is he? Do you know him?”
“That man,” replied Captain Sergeantson, sententiously, “is Karl Wertheimer. About the cutest spy the German Secret Service ever had.—I was going to tell Jimmy a story about him and brought his picture along with me,” he added in explanation. “I sort of recognized him from your description.”
The girl stared at the photograph.
“Of course,” continued Sergeantson, “he made up over that scar. He was an extraordinarily clever actor, by the way. They cleaned off the make-up when they took the photograph.”
“And he is a German spy!” mused the girl, still staring at the picture.
“He was!” replied Sergeantson, grimly. “The British shot him in the Tower when I was in London six months ago.”
The girl looked up sharply.
“I’m sure I’ve never seen his photograph before!” she said, as though answering an allegation she felt in the silence of the others. “How could I?”
“I can’t imagine, Miss Forsdyke. The extraordinary thing is that you should have got his limp. That’s what gave him away to the British. He broke his leg dropping over a wall in an exceedingly daring escape at the beginning of the war. But how you should know about it beats me all to pieces.”
“I didn’tknow—I saw——”
“You saw his ghost, I guess, Miss Forsdyke—and that’s all there is to it.” Captain Sergeantson lit himself another cigar by way of showing how cold-blooded he could be in the possible presence of a spectre.
Jimmy shuddered. “It’s uncanny,” he said. “I don’t like it.”
“Butwhy?” puzzled Hetty, wrinkling her brows. She turned to her father. “Poppa——!”
Forsdyke shook his head smilingly.
“I’m out of this deal. Ask the Professor. He’s the authority on spooks. What does it all mean, Lomax? Can you give an explanation that doesn’t outrage commonsense?”
The Professor smiled. The eyes in that clean-cut face twinkled.
“Commonsense?” He shrugged his shoulders. “We want to start by defining that—by defining all our senses—and we should never finish.” He looked with his challenging smile round the group. “I see you are inviting me to throw away my last little shred of reputation as a sane,” he said, humorously. “Well, I will not venture on any explanation of my own. The evidence, with all respect to Hetty here, is insufficient. We only know that she had a dream and a hallucination twice repeated. We know that the hallucination corresponds to a photograph in Captain Sergeantson’s pocket. We do not know what basis there is—if any—for her dream.But I will give you two alternative explanations that might be suggested by other people.—Will that satisfy you?”
“Go ahead, Professor,” said Forsdyke. “Don’t ask me to believe in ghosts, that’s all!”
“I don’t ask you to believe in anything,” replied the Professor. “I don’t ask you to believe in the reality of your presence and ours in this room. If you have ever read old Bishop Berkeley you will know that you would find it exceedingly difficult to evade the thesis that it may all be an illusion. Your consciousness—whatever that is—builds up a picture from impressions on your senses. You can’t test the reality of the origin of those impressions—you can only collate the subjective results. Everything—Time and Space—may be an illusion for all you or I know!”
“I heard that in my dream!” Hetty broke in. “Someone said it: ‘Time and Space are an illusion!’ I remember it so clearly now!” Her eyes glistened with excitement.
“All right, Hetty,” said her father. “Let the Professor have his say. It’s his turn. And don’t take us out of our depth, Lomax. You know as well as I do what I mean by commonsense.”
The Professor laughed.
“Well, I’m not going to guarantee either of the explanations, Forsdyke. I merely put them before you. The first is the out-and-out spiritualist explanation. Let us see what we can make of that. You must assume, with the spiritualists, that man has a soul which survives with its attributes of memory, volition, and a certain potentiality for action upon what we know as matter. Captain Sergeantson here vouches for the fact that a certain German spy, Karl Wertheimer, was shot in London six months ago. The spiritualist would allege that it is possible—under certain conditions which are very imperfectly under human command—for the soul (we’ll call it that) of Karl Wertheimer to put itself intocommunication with his old associates who still remain in the world of the living. There is an enormous mass of human testimony—which you may reject as worthless if you like—to the possibility of such a thing. Assume itispossible. Karl Wertheimer was a spy so successful, according to Captain Sergeantson, that it is reasonable to suppose that spying was his natural vocation, his life-passion, as much as painting pictures is the life-passion of an artist. It may be assumed that, if anything survives, one’s life-passion survives. Now suppose that Karl Wertheimer’s late employers believe in the possibility of communication with their late agent—that they find a medium—in this case, the young girl that Hetty saw in her dream—who can be controlled by the defunct Karl Wertheimer—through whom they can speak to him and receive communications from him—what is more natural than that they should do so? Admitting the premises, difficult as they are, it appears to me that the discarnate soul of Karl Wertheimer would be an extremely valuable secret agent——”
“Yes, suppose—suppose——” said Forsdyke. “It is all supposition. And it doesn’t explain Hetty’s dream.”
“I am coming to that,” pursued the Professor. “Grant me, for the sake of argument, all my suppositions. Karl Wertheimer’s employers are communicating with him and setting him tasks. One of those tasks, we will assume, concerns you. Now it may be, Forsdyke, that in the unseen world of discarnate spirits there is one who watches over you, guards you from danger. Someone, perhaps, who loved you in this life——”
Forsdyke glanced up to the portrait of his wife upon the wall.
“I leave the suggestion to you,” said the Professor, delicately. “We will merely pursue it as a hypothesis. Such a spirit would seek to warn you. It is obviously futile to discuss the means it might or might not employ. We know nothing of the conditions of discarnate life—nothing, at any rate, with scientific certainty. But wewill assume that such a spirit, desirous of communicating, finds that Hetty here is temporarily in a mediumistic condition—and by ‘mediumistic’ I mean merely that she is in the abnormal state which, in all ages and in all countries, induces persons to declare that they see and hear things imperceptible to others. She certainly had an abnormal headache. She goes to sleep and dreams. We won’t analyze dream-consciousness now. I will only point out that, in a clearly remembered dream, the events of that dream are as real to consciousness as the events of waking life, and that the perception of Time is enormously modified—you dream through hours of experience while the hand marks minutes on the clock. You are subject to a different illusion of Time—and, as Time and Space are but two faces of the same phenomenon, it may be said that you are subject to a different illusion of Space as well. The spiritualist uses this undoubted fact to support his assertion that in dream-sleep the spirit of the living person is freed from the conditions of matter and is in a condition at least approximating to that of a person who is dead—that it can and does accompany the spirits of those who in this life were linked to it.
“The spiritualist, then, endeavouring to explain our present problem, would allege that a spiritual agency concerned with your welfare led Hetty’s spirit into a room in Berlin where Karl Wertheimer’s employers were indicating him to you for some special purpose—that Hetty, being then pure spirit, could actually perceive Karl Wertheimer as a living being when perhaps those in the room (if there was such a room) could only perceive the girl through whom he was speaking—that she could actually hear the significant phrase of their conversation. Further, the spiritualist would assert as a possibility that Karl Wertheimer, ordered to obtain information in your possession, is actually here—shadowingyou more effectively than any mortal spy could do—and that Hetty, still retaining her mediumistic power, has actually seen him. That is a spiritualistic explanation—I apologize for its length, Forsdyke. Give me another of your very excellent and material cigars!”
“It is a fantastic explanation. I don’t believe a word of it,” said Forsdyke, passing him the box. “Let us have the other one.”
“The other one,” replied the Professor, cutting the tip of his cigar and lighting it carefully, with a critical glance at its even burning, “is shorter. It is the explanation of those who are determined to explain a great mass of well-attested and apparently abnormal facts by normal agency. Their explanation in one word is—telepathy. You know the idea—the common phenomenon of two people who utter a remark, unconnected with previous conversation, at the same moment. Living minds unconsciously act upon each other—that is experimentally proved. Why, therefore, drag in dead ones? That is their argument. Let us apply their theory. Hetty is in an abnormal condition. Captain Sergeantson is coming to dinner. In his pocket he has a photograph of the notorious German spy, Karl Wertheimer. In his mind he has a story about him which he intends to relate. Now there are well-documented cases of hallucinations of persons actually on their way to a house where they were not expected appearing to their destined hostesses. I could quote you dozens of examples. The telepathist says this is because the guest forms in his mind a vivid picture of himself in that house, which is projected forward to the hostess’s mind and causes her to think she sees him. Now, Captain Sergeantson’s mind is not full of himself—it is full of the story about Karl Wertheimer that he is going to tell. Hetty’s mind—somehow—picks this up. She goes to sleep and as in sleep, notoriously, the human mind has a faculty for building up pictures and a story. Hetty dreams this story about Karl Wertheimer. It is true that she has never seen Karl Wertheimer. But Captain Sergeantson presumably has a visualization of him, including the limp, in his mind. The subsequent hallucinations are explained by the tendency to automaticrepetition of any vivid impression upon the nervous centres which excite a picture in consciousness. It is a more or less tenable theory, but it would be gravely shaken if it happened that, unknown to Hetty or Captain Sergeantson—you actually had something to do with a secret schedule which would interest our friends the enemy.”
There was a silence. Forsdyke’s brow wrinkled as he stared into the fire. Suddenly he switched round to the Professor.
“That’s the devil of it, Lomax!” he exclaimed. “I have! A most secret schedule. Thank God, it will be out of my possession to-morrow morning, when I——”
“Don’t, Poppa!” cried Hetty, clapping her hand over his mouth. She stared wildly around her. “I feel sure that someone is listening!”
Forsdyke freed himself with a gesture which expressed his impatience of this absurdity.
“What do you make of that, Lomax?” he asked.
“Of course,” murmured the Professor, “Hetty’s mind may be influenced by a dominant anxiety in yours.—I should not like to say, Forsdyke!” His tone was emphatic. “Personally, I have never heard of a spectral spy—but—well, you are, on your showing worth spying on. And there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio—you know! If itispossible—then there are things more improbable than that this means of acquiring information should be used. Your schedule would, I take it, be priceless?”
“The fate of the world may be involved in it,” replied Forsdyke. “But I can’t believe——”
“I am certain!” exclaimed Hetty. “I feel there’s something uncanny around us now!” She shuddered. “Oh,dotake care, Poppa!”
“But what can he do?” asked Jimmy, who had been listening anxiously to the Professor’s explanation. “What do you suggest, Sergeantson? You’re the authentic spycatcher. How can you defeat the ghost of one?”
“I pass!” replied Sergeantson, laconically. “Professor, the word’s to you!”
Forsdyke looked genuinely worried.
“Of course, I don’t believe it, Lomax,” he said. “But supposing—supposing there was something like you suggest—what could I do?”
The Professor’s eyes twinkled.
“Assuming the objective reality of our supposition, my dear Forsdyke,” he replied, “I can think of only one effective counterstroke.”
He held their interest for a moment in suspense.
“And that is——?”
“To drop a bomb on the girl!”
“A bomb—on the girl——” puzzled Jimmy slowly. “Why?”
“Because when you break the telephone receiver it doesn’t matter what the fellow at the other end says—you can’t hear!”
“But we can’t get at her,” said Sergeantson. “We don’t even know who she is, or where. We should never find out—in time.”
“That’s just it,” agreed the Professor. “You would have no time. Assuming that a ghostly spy is haunting our friend Forsdyke—the moment he reads that schedule, or even indicates where it is, the spy reads it too——”
“Reads it?” echoed Jimmy, incredulously. “But surely ghosts can’t read!”
“It is alleged they can,” replied the Professor. “There is, for example, a very curious case reported of the Rev. Stainton Moses, a teacher at the University College in London during the ’seventies. A spirit, purporting to be writing through his hand, quoted to him a paragraph from a closed book in a friend’s library. Moses merely indicated a book and a page at random, without knowing even to what book he referred. The quotation was correct. One of the foremost scientists of the present day has lent the weight of his authority to this story byincorporating it in his book as evidence of supernormal powers——”[2]
“That is sure incredible, Professor!” cried Sergeantson.
“We are dealing with what normally are incredibilities,” said the Professor, with a smile. “We agreed to assume an objective reality to our supposition—and, assuming it, the spy would read that schedule at the same moment as Forsdyke, and possibly communicate it instantaneously. As Forsdyke is going to do something with that schedule to-morrow morning, well,” he shrugged his shoulders, “my money would be on the ghost!”
“My God!” said Forsdyke, thoroughly alarmed, “if it’s true—it’s maddening! One can do nothing!”
“Nothing,” agreed the Professor. “There would be no time.”
The men stared at each other, exasperated at the hopelessness of the problem. If—they scarcely dared admit it to their sanity—it really were the case?
Hetty startled them by a sudden cry.
“Didn’t you hear? Didn’t you hear?” she exclaimed. “Someone laughing at us—close behind!—Oh, look! Look!” She pointed to empty space. “There he is again! Don’t you see?”
She fainted in Jimmy’s ready arms.
* * * * *
The next morning Hetty found her father already at breakfast.
“Well,” he asked, his dry smile mildly sarcastic, “any more dreams?”
“Horrid!” she replied with a little shudder as she poured herself out some coffee. “But I don’t remember them.”
“You will see the doctor to-day, young woman,” observed her father in a tone which indicated his verdict on the happenings of the previous night.
Hetty was docility itself, a phenomenon not altogether lost on her experienced parent.
“Very well, Poppa,” she agreed, demurely. “What are you going to do this morning?”
“I am going to the office to get some papers——”
“Thepapers——?” She checked herself with a little frightened glance round the room.
Her father laughed—a good, healthy, commonsense laugh.
“Thepapers!” he said. “No more nonsense about ghosts, Hetty. I’m going to getthepapers from my office and take them round to the Conference. So now you know. And there’s a Colt automatic in the pocket of the automobile if any one tries tricks on the way.”
Hetty nodded her head sagely.
“Guess you’ve a place for me in that automobile, Poppa,” she said. “I’ll come with you to the office, wait while you get the papers, and go on with you to the Conference building—and while you’re there I’ll go on to see that doctor. I shall be back in time to pick you up before you are finished with your old Conference.”
Her father saw no objection to this, was in fact secretly glad to have her under his eye as long as possible.
“Mind, no tricks about the doctor!” he said, with an assumption of severity.
“Sure, Poppa!” was her equable reply.
A few minutes later saw them speeding through the keen air of a frosty morning toward Forsdyke’s office. But the interior of the limousine was warm, and Hetty, snug in her furs, looked a picture of young, healthy beauty, looked—— A memory came to Henry Forsdyke in a pang that brought a sigh. He thought of the Professor’s suggestion of last night. Of course, the whole thing was absurd!—but he wondered——
The car swung into the sidewalk in front of the Government building, stopped before the big doorway with the marble steps. Forsdyke got out.
“I shall be back in a few minutes,” he said.
Hetty watched him go across the pavement, ascend the marble steps. He looked neither to right nor left.Then who was that with him?Hetty felt her heart stop. Who was that who passed into the doorway with him? No one had been on the steps—she was suddenly sure of it. Yet—her heart began to pump again—certainly two figures had passed through the swing-doors! She sat chilled and paralyzed for the moment in which she visualized the memory of those two figures passing into the shadow of the interior—tried to think when she had first perceived the second. A certitude shot through her, a wild alarm.
She jumped to her feet, and with a blind, instinctive desire for a weapon, pulled the Colt out of the pocket of the limousine and thrust it into her muff. A moment later she was running across the pavement and up the marble steps. The janitor pulled open the swing-door for her. She fixed him with excited eyes.
“Who was that who came in with Mr. Forsdyke just now?” she asked breathlessly.
The janitor stared.
“No one, miss. Mr. Forsdyke was alone.”
Alone! She repressed an impulse to scream out, dashed to the elevator which had just come to rest after its descent. The attendant opened the gate at her approach.
“Did you take Mr. Forsdyke up just now?” she asked.
“Yes, miss.”
“Was he alone?”
“Sure!—He came in alone.”
“Take me up!” She trembled so that she could scarcely stand. Her eyes closed in a sickening anxiety as she swayed back against the wall of the elevator.
She shot upward. Another moment and she found herself racing along the corridor to her father’s rooms, twisting at the handle of the door.
She almost fell into the ante-room occupied by Jimmy Lomax. He jumped to his feet.
“Hetty!”
“Father!” She had scarcely breath enough for utterance. “Father!—I must see Father——!”
“Hetty, you can’t! He’s busy in his private room—no one dare——”
“I must!” she gasped. “Quick!—the ghost——!”
He stared in astonishment. She dodged past him, flung open the door into the next room.
Henry Forsdyke was standing, checking over a sheaf of papers in his hand, in front of the swung-open wall of the room, now revealed as a safe divided into many compartments. Hetty perceived him at the first glance;perceived, standing at his side, a man with a sardonic mocking face and a scar over the right eye who peered over his shoulder.
In a blind whirl of impulse she whipped out the automatic, rushed up close, and fired—into thin air!
Her father swung round on her in a burst of anger.
“Good God, Hetty!—Are you mad?”
She looked wildly at him.
“The ghost!—the ghost!”
He laughed despite his genuine wrath.
“Great heavens, what nonsense it all is!—What are you thinking of?—You can’t shoot a ghost!”
But Hetty had sunk on to a chair and was sobbing hysterically.
* * * * *
In the luxuriously furnished room in Berlin Kranz was speaking excitedly into the telephone.
“Excellenz!” he called. “Excellenz!—Are you there?—Quickly!—Karl says he will be with us in ten minutes!” He glanced toward the girl sleeping in the big chair. “Quickly!”
He listened for a moment and then put down the receiver with a satisfied air. He rose from his seat and began to pace nervously up and down the room. From time to time he threw a glance at the still figure stretchedback among the cushions. She slept with a regular deep breathing. He listened, anxiously alert for any change.
The minutes passed, slowly enough to his impatience. He looked at his watch. It marked ten minutes to four. A thought occurred to him—he amplified it deliberately, to occupy his mind. Ten minutes to four!—What time would it be in Washington? Six hours—ten minutes to ten in the morning. What would be happening at ten minutes to ten? What was Karl looking at——?
The raucous hoot of a Klaxon horn startled him out of these meditations. He ran to the window, looked out. A familiar motor-car was drawing up by the pavement. His Excellency had lost no time!
A few moments later and the dreaded Chief stood in the room, formidable still despite his dwarfed appearance in the great fur coat turned up to his ears. The clipped white moustache bristled more than ever, it seemed, as he glared at Kranz through the pince-nez with a ferocity which was but the expression of his excitement.
“Yes?” he cried, ere the door had closed after him. “What has happened? Speak, man!”
“Nothing yet,Excellenz!” Kranz hastened to assure him. “The girl swooned off suddenly at about a quarter to four—I have not let her out of my sight since last night—and then Karl spoke. He said—and it sounded as though he meant it—that he would give us the information in ten minutes. I telephoned you at once.”
“Right! Quite right!” snapped His Excellency. “Ten minutes! The time must be up——”
“Good afternoon,Excellenz!” The old man jumped. The familiar mocking voice came from the lifeless mask of the sleeping girl. “Your suggestion was correct—Forsdyke! He is taking me to it now!” The derisive laugh rang out, uncanny in the silent room. “Patience for a few minutes!”
The old man made an effort of his will.
“Where are you now, Karl?” he asked.
“In a motor-car—funny story—tell you later—patience.” The voice sounded far away and faint. “Look to the girl, Kranz—not breathing properly—can’t speak—if—power—fails.”
Kranz went to the sleeping girl. Her head had fallen forward and she was breathing stertorously. He rearranged the cushions, posed her head so that she once more breathed deeply and evenly.
They waited in a tense silence. Then her lips moved again.
“Listen—now! Take it down as I read it!” Karl’s voice rang with an unholy triumph.
“Quick, Kranz!—Write!” commanded the old man.
His subordinate leaped to the table, settled himself pen in hand.
The girl’s lips trembled in the commencement of speech, opened.
“Schedule of Sailings of American Army to Europe!” began the triumphant voice.
There was a pause.
“Yes—yes!” cried the old man impatiently. “Go on!”
“Numbers for March”—Karl Wertheimer’s voice came with a curious deliberation as though he were memorizing figures. “—Ahh!” The voice broke in a wild, unearthly cry that froze the blood.
They waited. There was no sound. They heard their hearts beat in a growing terror.
Suddenly the old man spoke.
“The girl!—Look, Kranz!—She does not breathe!”
Kranz sprang to her, lifted her hand, bent suddenly down to her face. He looked up with the eyes of a baulked demon.
“She is dead!” he said hoarsely.
He turned to her again and, with a frenzied rage, tore away the clothes from her throat and chest. Just over her heart was a small round dark spot staining the unbroken skin.
“Look!” he cried.
The old man peered down at the mark, and then stared round the room.
“What has happened?” The wild cry quavered with the terror of the Unseen.
No answer came from the silence.
NOTE
The belief that an injury done to the “astral” body of a spirit is reproduced in the physical body of the mediumen rapportwith that spirit is found in all countries and in all times, from the most ancient to the present. The old-time witch or wizard is, of course, the same psychologically abnormal type as the “medium” of to-day. The genuineness or otherwise of their powers is beside the point. Phenomena of the same nature as that described above are reported again and again in the witchcraft trials of the seventeenth century and in a comparatively recent legal case in France in 1853. Andrew Lang, analyzing this last case, says: “In the events at Cideville, and the depositions of witnesses, we have all the characteristics.... The phantom is wounded, a parallel wound is found on the suspected warlock.” Reporting the evidence in the trial, Lang continues: “Nails were driven into points on the floor where Lemonier saw the spectral figure standing. One nail became red-hot and the wood around it smoked: Lemonier said that this nail had hit ‘the man in the blouse’ on the cheek. Now, when Thorel was made to ask the boy’s pardon and was recognized by him as the phantom, Thorel bore on his cheek the mark of the wound!” The alleged wizard lost his case. (“A Modern Trial for Witchcraft,” inCock Lane and Common-sense, 1894, p. 278.)In this case it was the medium’s own spectre which appeared. But the modern spiritualist holds that there exists the same connection between the living body of the medium and the materialized spirit of the dead. “... The clutching of a [materialized] form hits the medium with a force like that of an electric shock, and many sensitives have been grievously injured by foolish triflers in this way.” (Spirit Intercourse, J. Hewat Mackenzie, 1916, p. 53.) Sir Wm. Crookes sounds the same warning note in his description of the famous “Katie King” case (Researches in Spiritualism, 1874, p. 108et seq.).
The belief that an injury done to the “astral” body of a spirit is reproduced in the physical body of the mediumen rapportwith that spirit is found in all countries and in all times, from the most ancient to the present. The old-time witch or wizard is, of course, the same psychologically abnormal type as the “medium” of to-day. The genuineness or otherwise of their powers is beside the point. Phenomena of the same nature as that described above are reported again and again in the witchcraft trials of the seventeenth century and in a comparatively recent legal case in France in 1853. Andrew Lang, analyzing this last case, says: “In the events at Cideville, and the depositions of witnesses, we have all the characteristics.... The phantom is wounded, a parallel wound is found on the suspected warlock.” Reporting the evidence in the trial, Lang continues: “Nails were driven into points on the floor where Lemonier saw the spectral figure standing. One nail became red-hot and the wood around it smoked: Lemonier said that this nail had hit ‘the man in the blouse’ on the cheek. Now, when Thorel was made to ask the boy’s pardon and was recognized by him as the phantom, Thorel bore on his cheek the mark of the wound!” The alleged wizard lost his case. (“A Modern Trial for Witchcraft,” inCock Lane and Common-sense, 1894, p. 278.)
In this case it was the medium’s own spectre which appeared. But the modern spiritualist holds that there exists the same connection between the living body of the medium and the materialized spirit of the dead. “... The clutching of a [materialized] form hits the medium with a force like that of an electric shock, and many sensitives have been grievously injured by foolish triflers in this way.” (Spirit Intercourse, J. Hewat Mackenzie, 1916, p. 53.) Sir Wm. Crookes sounds the same warning note in his description of the famous “Katie King” case (Researches in Spiritualism, 1874, p. 108et seq.).
[2]The reference is toThe Survival of Man, Sir Oliver Lodge, pp. 104-5.
Mr. Todmorden rose from his seat in the railway carriage; he spoke in the tones of a man who ends a discussion:
“Well, gentlemen, this is my station, and you haven’t convinced me that a man ever commits a crime unless of his own free-will. I’d show no mercy to the rascal! Good-night!”
Mr. Todmorden was far from being so stern, either in appearance or character, as this emphatically uttered sentiment would suggest. As his short, stout figure moved along the platform, the head thrown back and a pair of bright little eyes, set in a chubby round face, glancing sharply through his spectacles for an acquaintance to smile at, he looked—what, in fact, he was—a successful city man whose original kindness of heart had mellowed into habitual benevolence—the type of man who moves through life beaming on people who touch their caps; salutation and recognition alike instinctive, meeting each other half-way.
Affable though Mr. Todmorden was, he had his prejudices and his pride; pride centred in the practice he had built up as a family solicitor of standing and renown: prejudices directed against those unfortunates who, from choice or necessity, transgressed the social code. His ideal in life was probity. He was intolerant of any infraction of it, and conducted his own affairs with punctilious scrupulousness. If he contemplated himself with some approbation it was justified. His fellow-men concurred in it.
In the warm light of a late summer sunset he strolled along the suburban streets to his home. His countenance expressed that contentment with himself and his surroundings usual with him. His mind, satisfied, played lightly over the headings of sundry affairs, neatly docketed and done with, he had settled that day. Other affairs, not so completed, were thrust into the background until the morrow. His good-humoured round face was in readiness for a smile.
Suddenly he stopped and contemplated through his spectacles a large house a little way back from the road. A long ladder resting against the wall was the uncommon object that had attracted his attention.
“Dear me!” he said to himself, “Old Miss Hartley having the house painted again!”
Miss Hartley was one of his oldest and most valued clients. In fact, both repudiated the business term and called each other “friends.” Their sentiments toward each other warranted it. She was an elderly spinster, eccentric and wealthy; he a bachelor who could and did afford himself a whim. They smiled at one another’s oddities without any lessening of the mutual respect many years of intercourse had induced. His attitude toward the old lady was almost fraternal. The long practice of watching her interests had developed a habit of affectionate protection in him. He advised her on countless petty manners and forgot to put them in the bill. He was personally, not merely professionally, anxious on her behalf when the occasion required it.
The sight of the ladder against the wall recalled one of his most common anxieties. It was a pet grievance of his that she would persist in living alone, save for one maid, in that large house. To his mind, she offered herself as a prey to the malefactor who should chance to correlate the two facts of her wealth and her solitude. He expressed that opinion frequently, and was obstinately smiled at. Now, as he walked on, the thought of the danger she invited recurred to him. It irritated him.
“Tut! tut!” he said. “That ladder, now, is just placed right for a burglar! I’m sure it is! Dear me! how careless! how very careless!” He tried to measure the ladder from his remembrance of it, and, to end his doubts, returned and examined it again. The ladder rested close to a freshly painted window-sill on the first floor.
“Dear me! dear me!” said Mr. Todmorden, genuinely perturbed. “That’s the window of Miss Hartley’s room!” He stood irresolute, debating whether he should ring the bell, and point out the dangerous position of the ladder. A nervous fear of the old lady’s smile restrained him. He knew she regarded him as an old “fusser.”
He walked on again, carrying his fears.
“She is really too foolish, too foolish!” he repeated. “Living alone there—with only that stupid girl in the house! Any one might break in. They’ve only to walk up that ladder! And she will persist in advertising that she has valuables!” The occasion of the final clause in Mr. Todmorden’s mental arraignment was a particularly fine diamond brooch the old lady wore at all times, despite his protests. If there was a sentimental reason for its continual use, she concealed it under her quiet smile. The memory of that smile irritated Mr. Todmorden. “Confound her! she’s so obstinate!” His thoughts focussed themselves on that brooch, with a criminal lurking in the background. Gradually, they drifted to the criminal. As his irritation faded under the soft warm light of the sunset, he amused himself by picturing types of possible burglars. Finally, forgetting his original preoccupation, he thought of an ancestor of his own—his maternal grandfather—who had been transported for a doubtful case of murder. In contrast to that squalid page of family history self-esteem read over his own achievements. Successful, respected, an alderman, a possible knighthood in front, he had surely wiped out that black patch on his pedigree. He savoured a very pleasant sense of personal probity as he walked up the drive to his house.
He ate his solitary dinner, and revived the feeling of well-being with a bottle of his favourite port. Then Miss Hartley’s brooch recurred to his mind, and was followed by a thought of the ladder which led to it, and of a criminal who might climb the ladder. As he sat in his big chair in the lonely dining-room, gazing at passing thoughts rather than thinking them, the case of his maternal grandfather cropped up in his reverie. Moved by a sudden whim, he rose from his chair and took down a battered volume of law reports. Fortified by another glass, he read through the case of his ancestor. He finished it, and sat thoughtful for a moment before replacing the book. “H’m, h’m,” he said to himself. “Very doubtful! Very doubtful! Ah, well, we’ve travelled a long road since then!” He smiled at his own success, and went off to bed in a contented mood. That doubtful grandfather was a long way back.
In the morning, as he walked down to the station to catch his usual train, he noticed a group of people standing on the pavement and gazing up at a house. An unreasoning anxiety gripped him. He hastened his pace. Yes—surely!—it was Miss Hartley’s house which excited this unwonted interest. He arrived among the crowd, rather out of breath.
“What is it? What is it, my man?” he demanded of a gazing spectator.
Half a dozen voices replied.
“It’s a murder! Old Miss Hartley——!”
Mr. Todmorden did not wait to hear more.
“Good gracious!” he said, as he hurried along the garden path, and “Good gracious!” he repeated, as he rang the bell. He could not formulate a thought. He gazed, mentally, at the awful thing, stunned.
The door was opened by a policeman. Behind him stood the maid-servant, white, frightened, and sobbing. She ran toward him with a cry of “Oh, sir!” but broke down, unable to utter a word.
“All right, all right, Ellen,” said Mr. Todmordenrather brusquely, pushing her aside. He addressed himself to the policeman. “What has happened, constable? Surely not murder?”
“Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.” He looked doubtfully at his questioner. “Are you one of the old lady’s relatives, sir?”
“No. I’m her solicitor, and one of her oldest friends. Dear me! dear me! how terrible! Is there any one in authority here, constable?”
“Two inspectors upstairs, sir.”
“Can I see them?”
He was shown into the bedroom, and introduced himself to the police-officers. They welcomed him with gravity. On the bed lay a covered figure. Mr. Todmorden drew aside the sheet and gazed upon the features of his old friend. They were marred by a bullet-hole through the forehead. He turned away, trembling, his face working with emotion. He could scarcely speak, but made the effort due to his dignity, as the deceased’s legal adviser. “Any—any clue?” he asked.
“None, sir, at present,” was the reply.
“Dear me! how terrible! how very terrible! She was my oldest friend——” he could not find the strength to repress his grief—“my oldest friend! Oh, it’s awful, inspector, awful! The—the wickedness of it! She hadn’t an enemy.” He struggled for the control of himself. “What was it—robbery?”
“No, sir—nothing seems to be tampered with. Perhaps the murderer was startled.”
“When was it discovered?”
“This morning, when the maid brought in the tea. She says she heard nothing. She admits being a heavy sleeper.”
“And there is nothing missing?”
“Apparently not, sir. The drawers were locked, and the keys have not been interfered with. Nothing was disturbed, in fact.”
“Ah!” Mr. Todmorden was gradually getting backinto his legal clearness of mind. “Has the girl looked carefully round to see if anything has disappeared?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Call her up, if you please, officer.”
Ellen appeared, still weeping, and was bidden to look round for anything out of place. Dabbing her eyes, she examined the room carefully. Suddenly she gave a cry.
“The mistress’s diamond brooch! I put it here last night!” She pointed to a tray on the dressing-table. “It’s gone!”
“Good God!” said Mr. Todmorden. “How very curious!”
The inspectors looked at him sharply.
“Does that give you any clue, sir?” asked one of them.
“No—no,” he replied, rather confused. “I—the fact is, I was thinking of that brooch only last night, and of how unprotected Miss Hartley was. I have often told her so—poor woman!”
“Ah!” said the inspectors in chorus. Mr. Todmorden felt there was something suspicious in their sharply uttered exclamation. Even to himself his explanation had sounded lame. The police-officers might imagine he was shielding somebody. The consciousness of his inability to explain how very startling the fulfilment of his fears had been to him made him feel awkward.
“Of course,” he said, “the murderer must have come in by the ladder.”
“The ladder?” asked one of the inspectors. “I saw no ladder.”
“There was certainly a ladder resting against the sill of this window at six o’clock last night,” asserted Mr. Todmorden. “The house, you will observe, is being redecorated. I noticed the ladder, and it occurred to me that a first-class opportunity was being offered to a burglar. In fact, I was on the point of calling on Miss Hartley and warning her of it. I wish I had done so!”
“H’m!” The inspector scarcely deigned to triflewith the suggestion. It could be understood that it was his professional prerogative to evolve theories. “Yes—perhaps. But I think we can explain the entrance in a more likely way,” he said, mysteriously. “It is scarcely probable that the decorator’s men would leave the ladder there all night, sir.”
“I’m sure the rascal came up the ladder!” Mr. Todmorden’s affirmation was so vehement, came so involuntarily, that it surprised himself. Why was he so positive? He felt uncomfortable. He put on a bustling, important air. “Well, well, I must get up to town, as I have a very important appointment. I will look in at the station on my way home this evening. If you hear of anything during the day you might communicate with me. Here is my card.”
The old gentleman took his way to the city, oppressed by grief. Bitterly he reproached himself for not having ceded to his impulse to point out the dangerous position of that fatal ladder.
As good as his word, he called at the police-station on his way home. The chief inspector received him:
“A very mysterious affair, Mr. Todmorden. Very mysterious!”
“It is very terrible to me,” replied the old gentleman. “Miss Hartley was a very old friend. I feel myself in some way responsible. The possibility of such a tragedy actually occurred to me on my way home last night, and I might have warned her of it. I shall never forgive myself. Miss Hartley relied upon me. It is terrible to think that I failed her in this supreme instance.”
“You refer to the ladder,” said the inspector. “We have made enquiries about that. It appears it was overlooked last night and was carried away by one of the decorator’s men at six o’clock this morning. Undoubtedly, the murderer used it. In fact, he left the window open after him.”
“I was certain of it,” said Mr. Todmorden. “And there is no clue to the rascal?”
“Hardly any. The constable on the beat reports that, at two o’clock this morning, he saw the figure of a man running along the road away from the house. That man was wearing a very light suit—possibly a flannel one. A curious dress for a burglar, I think you will admit. The constable particularly noticed that there was no sound of footsteps as the man ran. He must have been wearing rubber soles. Unfortunately, the constable lost sight of him when he turned the corner.”
“Dear me!” said Mr. Todmorden. Only half his mind had listened to the inspector’s words; the other half was occupied by that curious and fairly common hallucination of a previous and identical incident. The description was oddly familiar. He seemed to know it in advance. At an intense moment of the hallucination, he had a glimpsed memory of himself running, running along a road at the dead of night, running silently. He shook off the uncomfortable and absurd feeling. “Dear me! How very strange!”
The inspector was observing him narrowly.
“I suppose you cannot give us any hint that might help us, Mr. Todmorden? You know no one who bore the old lady a grudge?”
“Certainly not. She was the best and kindest of women.”
“May I ask who benefits by her death?”
“She has only one relative, a nephew, who inherits everything. He is in America. I have cabled to him, and received a reply.”
“Ah! So he’s out of it.”
“Of course, of course.”
“This business of the brooch, Mr. Todmorden—it seems strange that the murderer should have taken that, and that only. He has made no attempt on anything else. You know no one who had an interest in the article?”
“No one. Miss Hartley wore it always. I have often expostulated with her for wearing so valuable a pieceof jewellery in the street. Someone might have noticed it and resolved to obtain it.”
“Yes, yes, of course. A very strange affair, Mr. Todmorden, very strange! I confess I cannot see light in it. Er—her affairs are quite in order, of course?”
“Quite. I keep the accounts; they are open to investigation. The name of Todmorden and Baines is a sufficient guarantee, I think,” he added, with a smile. “But, of course, it is natural you should wish to make sure. You can examine the books to-morrow.”
“Unnecessary, my dear sir, I’m quite certain. Of course, I am bound to ask these unpleasant questions.”
“Don’t apologize. I am as anxious as you are to catch the criminal. I have, in fact, a personal interest in it. Miss Hartley was so good a friend to me that I shall never rest until I have brought the scoundrel to justice. A reward may help. I will personally give a hundred pounds for his apprehension. You might have bills printed to that effect.”
“Thank you, Mr. Todmorden. I hope we shall be able to claim it, though, at present, I see little chance of it. However, something may turn up.”
As Mr. Todmorden went home, he looked years older than the man who had traversed the same ground twenty-four hours earlier. Grief-stricken though he was, at the loss of his dear friend, his predominant emotion was a fierce lust for vengeance on the murderer. His fingers worked, gripped the air, as he brooded on him—the hated unknown—and his step oscillated from fast to slow and slow to fast, as thoughts, hopeful or despondent, got the upper hand. If he could only lay hands on the scoundrel. A black and bitter wrath seethed in him. It was, unjustifiably, the more bitter at the remembrance that Fate had placed for a moment in his hand the power to avert the tragedy, had given him a glimpse into the future—and yet had turned aside his will. The wickedness of it! That dear, kind, charitable old soul! Shotlike a dog! He stamped his foot on the pavement at the thought of it; tears welled up in his eyes.
“I’ll double that reward if he isn’t caught within a week!” he decided. The decision comforted him.
All through his solitary dinner he brooded on the crime, and sat afterward, for long hours, trying to think of someone who might have an urgent reason for possessing himself of that diamond brooch. He went to bed at last, baffled, weary, heartsick. Had he met the murderer on the stairs he would gladly have throttled him with his own hands.
Putting on his pyjamas, he noticed something unusual—something hard—in the pocket. Mechanically, he drew out the object and looked at it. He stood as if petrified, his eyes staring, sweat breaking out on his brow.
In his hand he held Miss Hartley’s diamond brooch!
He gazed at it, overwhelmed with amazement and horror. What was happening? Was he crazed? Was his mind unhinged by the event of the morning, was this an hallucination? All that was his familiar self prayed, prayed hard, that this might be madness. Or—his instinct of self-preservation caused him to clutch at the thought—was he the victim of some atrocious trick? Impossible. Was it real? He felt the jewel—turned it, so that it sparkled under the electric light.
“My God!” said Mr. Todmorden, sinking into a chair. The familiar concrete surroundings crumbled about him, were dissipated. He gazed into unfathomable mysteries.
How could the brooch have got into his pocket? Someone must have put it there! Someone! Who? Who could have come into his bedroom and put that damnatory brooch into the pocket of his pyjamas? The servants? He reviewed them swiftly. Impossible! Then who? Not—surely not—he must be going mad—not himself! It was absurd, unthinkable. He had gone to bed and slept without a dream. Or, was there a dream—a dream of running in the darkness, fast, barefoot? Nonsense! Nonsense! He did not get up in the middle of the night, walk down the street, murder his dearest friend, and come back as though nothing had happened! His mind flashed on the portrait of Miss Hartley, and he felt the cruel irony of the supposition, though he himself made it. Then who—who? A wave of superstition swept over him. Devils? It was inexplicable. He revolted at something obscure within him, something which pointed a finger to the accusing brooch, which whispered the inexorable corollary in his ear. No! No! It could not be! He was innocent, he was conscious, instinctively conscious of his innocence.
But was he?
The something whispered persistently. An idea came to him—the proof. He went quickly across to a drawer in his dressing-table and took out his revolver. With trembling hands he examined the charges. One had been exploded! Had devils fired his revolver also? Oh, God! He thought he was going to faint.
How? Why? How? Why? These two questions besieged him incessantly, battering at his crumbling mind. He clasped his head in his hands, rocked to and fro on his chair.
Madness? Madness came in these sudden attacks, so an imp of thought assured him. He was mad! Mad!
For hours he strode up and down the room, wrestling with demons in the night. He had killed his dearest friend. He had no doubt of it; the realization filled him with an agony of horror and grief. He would gladly have died rather than have done this awful thing. And how had he done it? How had he committed this crime without the faintest remembrance of it? It was impossible! He had not—then he looked at the brooch, and knew he had. It was monstrous, unthinkable—but true.
At length, physically exhausted, he threw himself on the bed and continued the struggle—striving, striving to see light in this appalling mystery. At last he fell asleep.
He woke and looked around him. He was in a dark room. That was strange. He knew he had left the light on. He was standing up. He held something in his hand—a book. Puzzled, he put out his hand to where the switch of the electric light should be. It was not there. In a new terror that surged up, obliterating the older horrors of the night, he groped along the wall for the switch, and found it. The place sprang into light. He was in the dining-room! In his hand he held the report of his grandfather’s trial. The truth flashed on him.
He was a somnambulist.
With a wild cry he sank down in a swoon.
When he returned to consciousness, the electric lamps were yellow patches in the sunlight which filled the room. He struggled to his feet and switched them off. He stood for some moments unsteadily, trying to adjust his mind to these unfamiliar surroundings, to remember—to remember something. Then his ghastly situation rushed on his mind, vivid with a new light. He was a criminal! He risked discovery, ruin! He heard people moving about—servants. They must not suspect him of any abnormality. Haggard, trembling, giddy, an old, old man, he tottered up the stairs to his own bedroom.
Escape—escape from the consequences of his involuntary crime was his master impulse. He was no longer the benevolent Mr. Todmorden, successful, respected, the eminent solicitor; he was a hunted criminal, happed by Furies. He must not be found out. He sobbed in self-pity and strove for the control of his faculties. He must think—must think. The brooch must be got rid of. He would drop it over London Bridge. Yes, that was the way. The brooch gone beyond all possibility of recovery, who would suspect him? He had not suspected himself. He breathed more freely, feeling himself already safe. He would triple that reward. That would avert suspicion. Yes. Yes. He repeated the monosyllable to himself as he walked up and down the room.
But suppose there was some trace of the crime on him? He must make sure. The inspector’s story of the light-suited fugitive came into his mind—his pyjamas! That fugitive must have been himself in his pyjamas. He had again that flashed memory of running, running silently. He doubted no longer, but examined the pyjamas on his body, searching for a spot of blood, for any sign that might betray him. Yes! There on the trouser-leg was a smear of stone-coloured paint—the paint on Miss Hartley’s window-sill. He must get those pyjamas away, destroy them—somehow. He thought of half a dozen plans and rejected all. Everything he thought of seemed to proclaim his guilt. The problem was still unsolved when another danger occurred to him. His revolver contained a discharged cartridge. He must reload it. Feverishly he did so. As he clicked the chambers into place there was a knock at the door. He put down the revolver and listened in sudden panic. The knock was repeated. He tried to speak and could not. At last words came:
“What is it?”
“Please, sir, a man from the police-station wants to speak to you at once.”
He tried hard to reply in his normal tones.
“All right. Tell him I’ll be down presently.”
“Please, sir, he says he can’t wait. It’s very urgent.” Discovery? No! Impossible—as yet! He kept a tremor out of his voice by an effort.
“Show him into my dressing-room.”
Mr. Todmorden thought swiftly for a vivid second. That smear of paint must be concealed. He slipped on a dressing-gown. Then he caught sight of his revolver on the table, and, on a blind impulse, dropped it into his pocket. He took a long breath. Now—was there anything about him suspicious? He opened his dressing-gown and surveyed himself in the mirror. Yes!—there was a button gone from his pyjama-jacket! Where had he lost that button? He would have given anything for certainty. But he must not keep the police waiting. Thatwould look strange. He girdled his gown about him and went into the dressing-room.
The chief inspector awaited him. A sharp expression of surprise came into the officer’s face.
“I have had a bad night, inspector,” said the old gentleman, noticing the look and feeling his haggard appearance needed explanation.
The inspector condoled with him.
“I am pleased to say we have found a slight clue to the criminal, Mr. Todmorden,” he said, looking again sharply at the old gentleman. Mr. Todmorden felt he quailed under the glance. “It’s a button. And, the curious thing is, it is a pyjama button.”
“Yes?” Mr. Todmorden’s mouth went dry.
“Funny wear for a burglar—pyjamas,” commented the inspector. “Don’t you think so, sir?”
“Very curious.” Mr. Todmorden recognized the urgent necessity for a normal voice. “Yes; very curious.” He must talk—say something! “By the way, inspector, I’ve been thinking about that reward. I’ve decided to triple it. I—I am determined to catch the scoundrel.”
“Very kind of you, sir. I hope we shall ask you for the cheque. We’re on the road, anyway. We’ve only got to find out where those pyjamas came from, and, quite likely, we shall get on his track.”
“Yes, yes, quite so.” Would the interview never end? Mr. Todmorden agonized.
“If we can only find some buttons like this we can make a start. There are differences even in pyjama buttons, you know, sir. I have compared it with mine, but it doesn’t tally. Would you mind comparing it with yours?”
Mr. Todmorden stared at him, speechless.
“Would you mind comparing it with yours, sir? We must not neglect any chance of getting a clue. Allow me!”
He stepped quickly to the old gentleman and flung asidehis dressing-gown. The buttons, with the hanging thread of their missing fellow, were revealed. Triumph flashed in the inspector’s face.
“James Henry Todmorden, I——”
Mr. Todmorden jumped back from his grasp. With a sharp cry he drew his hand swiftly from his pocket. There was a report, and he dropped to the floor.
The inspector looked at his lifeless body.
“I thought the old rascal did it,” he said. “A well-planned bit of work, though.”