THE LAND OF MIST

One morning in the succeeding week Mr. Malone was aware of a large presence in the small room wherein he did his work at the office. A page-boy, who preceded the stout visitor, had laid a card on the corner of the table which bore the legend 'James Bolsover, Provision Merchant, High Street, Hammersmith.' It was none other than the genial president of last Sunday's congregation. He wagged a paper accusingly at Malone, but his good-humoured face was wreathed in smiles.

"Well, well," said he. "I told you that the funny side would get you."

"Don't you think it a fair account?"

"Well, yes, Mr. Malone, I think you and the young woman have done your best for us. But, of course, you know nothing and it all seems queer to you. Come to think of it, it would be a deal queerer if all the clever men who leave this earth could not among them find some way of getting a word back to us."

"But it's such a stupid word sometimes."

"Well, there are a lot of stupid people leave the world. They don't change. And then, you know, one never knows what sort of message is needed. We had a clergyman in to see Mrs. Debbs yesterday. He was broken-hearted because he had lost his daughter. Mrs. Debbs got several messages through that she was happy and that only his grief hurt her. 'That's no use', said he. 'Anyone could say that. That's not my girl'. And then suddenly she said: 'But I wish to goodness you would not wear a Roman collar with a coloured shirt'. That sounded a trivial message, but the man began to cry. 'That's her', he sobbed. 'She was always chipping me about my collars'. It's the little things that count in this life--just the homely, intimate things, Mr. Malone."

Malone shook his head. "Anyone would remark on a coloured shirt and a clerical collar."

Mr. Bolsover laughed. "You're a hard proposition. So was I once, so I can't blame you. But I called here with a purpose. I expect you are a busy man and I know that I am, so I'll get down to the brass tacks. First, I wanted to say that all our people that have any sense are pleased with the article. Mr. Algernon Mailey wrote me that it would do good, and if he is pleased we are all pleased."

"Mailey the barrister?"

"Mailey, the religious reformer. That's how he will be known."

"Well, what else?"

"Only that we would help you if you and the young lady wanted to go further in the matter. Not for publicity, mind you, but just for your own good--though we don't shrink from publicity, either. I have psychical phenomena seances at my own home without a professional medium, and if you would like . . . "

"There's nothing I would like so much."

"Then you shall come--both of you. I don't have many outsiders. I wouldn't have one of those psychic research people inside my doors. Why should I go out of my way to be insulted by all their suspicions and their traps? They seem to think that folk have no feelings. But you have some ordinary common sense. That's all we ask."

"But I don't believe. Would that not stand in the way?"

"Not in the least. So long as you are fair-minded and don't disturb the conditions, all is well. Spirits out of the body don't like disagreeable people any more than spirits in the body do. Be gentle and civil, same as you would to any other company."

"Well, I can promise that."

"They are funny sometimes," said Mr. Bolsover, in reminiscent vein. "It is as well to keep on the right side of them. They are not allowed to hurt humans, but we all do things we're not allowed to do, and they are very human themselves. You remember how The Times correspondent got his head cut open with the tambourine in one of the Davenport Brothers' seances. Very wrong, of course, but it happened. No friend ever got his head cut open. There was another case down Stepney way. A money lender went to a seance. Some victim that he had driven to suicide got into the medium. He got the moneylender by the throat and it was a close thing for his life. But I'm off, Mr. Malone. We sit once a week and have done for four years without a break. Eight o'clock Thursdays. Give us a day's notice and I'll get Mr. Mailey to meet you. He can answer questions better than I. Next Thursday! Very good." And Mr. Bolsover lurched out of the room.

Both Malone and Enid Challenger had, perhaps, been more shaken by their short experience than they had admitted, but both were sensible people who agreed that every possible natural cause should be exhausted--and very thoroughly exhausted--before the bounds of what is possible should be enlarged. Both of them had the utmost respect for the ponderous intellect of Challenger and were affected by his strong views, though Malone was compelled to admit in the frequent arguments in which he was plunged that the opinion of a clever man who has had no experience is really of less value than that of the man in the street who has actually been there.

These arguments, as often as not, were with Mervin, editor of the psychic paper Dawn, which dealt with every phase of the occult, from the lore of the Rosicrucians to the strange regions of the students of the Great Pyramid, or of those who uphold the Jewish origin of our blonde Anglo-Saxons. Mervin was a small, eager man with a brain of a high order, which might have carried him to the most lucrative heights of his profession had he not determined to sacrifice worldly prospects in order to help what seemed to him to be a great truth. As Malone was eager for knowledge and Mervin was equally keen to impart it, the waiters at the Literary Club found it no easy matter to get them away from the corner-table in the window at which they were wont to lunch. Looking down at the long, grey curve of the Embankment and the noble river with its vista of bridges, the pair would linger over their coffee, smoking cigarettes and discussing various sides of this most gigantic and absorbing subject, which seemed already to have disclosed new horizons to the mind of Malone.

There was one warning given by Mervin which aroused impatience amounting almost to anger in Malone's mind. He had the hereditary Irish objection to coercion and it seemed to him to be appearing once more in an insidious and particularly objectionable form.

"You are going to one of Bolsover's family seances," said Mervin. "They are, of course, well known among our people, though few have been actually admitted, so you may consider yourself privileged. He has clearly taken a fancy to you."

"He thought I wrote fairly about them."

"Well, it wasn't much of an article, but still among the dreary, purblind nonsense that assails us it did show some traces of dignity and balance and sense of proportion."

Malone waved a deprecating cigarette.

"Bolsover's seances and others like them are, or course, things of no moment to the real psychic. They are like the rude foundations of a building which certainly help to sustain the edifice, but are forgotten when once you come to inhabit it. It is the higher superstructure with which we have to do. You would think that the physical phenomena were the whole subject--those and a fringe of ghosts and haunted houses--if you were to believe the cheap papers who cater for the sensationalist. Of course, these physical phenomena have a use of their own. They rivet the attention of the inquirer and encourage him to go further. Personally, having seen them all, I would not go across the road to see them again. But I would go across many roads to get high messages from the beyond."

"Yes, I quite appreciate the distinction, looking at it from your point of view. Personally, of course, I am equally agnostic as to the messages and the phenomena."

"Quite so. St. Paul was a good psychic. He makes the point so neatly that even his ignorant translators were unable to disguise the real occult meanings as they have succeeded in doing in so many cases."

"Can you quote it?"

"I know my New Testament pretty well, but I am not letter-perfect. It is the passage where he says that the gift of tongues, which was an obvious sensational thing, was for the uninstructed, but that prophecies, that is real spiritual messages, were for the elect. In other words that an experienced Spiritualist has no need of phenomena."

"I'll look that passage up."

"You will find it in Corinthians, I think. By the way, there must have been a pretty high average of intelligence among those old congregations if Paul's letters could have been read aloud to them and thoroughly comprehended."

"That is generally admitted, is it not?"

"Well, it is a concrete example of it. However, I am down a side-track. What I wanted to say to you is that you must not take Bolsover's little spirit circus too seriously. It is honest as far as it goes, but it goes a mighty short way. It's a disease, this phenomena hunting. I know some of our people, women mostly, who buzz around seance rooms continually, seeing the same thing over and over, sometimes real, sometimes, I fear, imitation. What better are they for that as souls or as citizens or in any other way? No, when your foot is firm on the bottom rung don't mark time on it, but step up to the next rung and get firm upon that."

"I quite get your point. But I'm still on the solid ground."

"Solid!" cried Mervin. "Good Lord! But the paper goes to press to-day and I must get down to the printer. With a circulation of ten thousand or so we do things modestly, you know--not like you plutocrats of the daily press. I am practically the staff."

"You said you had a warning."

"Yes, yes, I wanted to give you a warning." Mervin's thin, eager face became intensely serious. "If you have any ingrained religious or other prejudices which may cause you to turn down this subject after you have investigated it, then don't investigate at all--for it is dangerous."

"What do you mean--dangerous?"

"They don't mind honest doubt, or honest criticism, but if they are badly treated they are dangerous."

"Who are 'they'?"

"Ah, who are they? I wonder. Guides, controls, psychic entities of some kind. Who the agents of vengeance--or I should say justice--are, is really not essential. The point is that they exist."

"Oh, rot, Mervin!"

"Don't be too sure of that."

"Pernicious rot! These are the old theological bogies of the Middle Ages coming up again. I am surprised at a sensible man like you!"

Mervin smiled--he had a whimsical smile--but his eyes, looking out from under bushy yellow brows, were as serious as ever.

"You may come to change your opinion. There are some queer sides to this question. As a friend I put you wise to this one."

"Well, put me wise, then."

Thus encouraged, Mervin went into the matter. He rapidly sketched the career and fate of a number of men who had, in his opinion, played an unfair game with these forces, become an obstruction, and suffered for it. He spoke of judges who had given prejudiced decisions against the cause, of journalists who had worked up stunt cases for sensational purposes and to throw discredit on the movement; of others who had interviewed mediums to make game of them, or who, having started to investigate, had drawn back alarmed, and given a negative decision when their inner soul knew that the facts were true. It was a formidable list, for it was long and precise, but Malone was not to be driven.

"If you pick your cases I have no doubt one could make such a list about any subject. Mr. Jones said that Raphael was a bungler, and Mr. Jones died of angina pectoris. Therefore it is dangerous to criticize Raphael. That seems to be the argument."

"Well, if you like to think so."

"Take the other side. Look at Morgate. He has always been an enemy, for he is a convinced materialist. But he prospers--look at his professorship."

"Ah, an honest doubter. Certainly. Why not?"

"And Morgan who at one time exposed mediums."

"If they were really false he did good service."

"And Falconer who has written so bitterly about you?"

"Ah, Falconer! Do you know anything of Falconer's private life? No. Well, take it from me he has got his dues. He doesn't know why. Some day these gentlemen will begin to compare notes and then it may dawn on them. But they get it."

He went on to tell a horrible story of one who had devoted his considerable talents to picking Spiritualism to pieces, though really convinced of its truth, because his worldly ends were served thereby. The end was ghastly--too ghastly for Malone.

"Oh, cut it out, Mervin!" he cried impatiently. "I'll say what I think, no more and no less, and I won't be cared by you or your spooks into altering my opinions."

"I never asked you to."

"You got a bit near it. What you have said strikes me as pure superstition. If what you say is true you should have the police after you."

"Yes, if we did it. But it is out of our hands. However, Malone, for what it's worth I have given you the warning and you can now go your way. Bye-bye! You can always ring me up at the office of Dawn."

If you want to know if a man is of the true Irish blood there is one infallible test. Put him in front of a swing-door with "Push" or "Pull" printed upon it. The Englishman will obey like a sensible man. The Irishman, with less sense but more individuality, will at once and with vehemence do the opposite. So it was with Malone. Mervin's well-meant warning simply raised a rebellious spirit within him, and when he called for Enid to take her to the Bolsover seance he had gone back several degrees in his dawning sympathy for the subject. Challenger bade them farewell with many gibes, his beard projecting forward and his eyes closed with upraised eyebrows, as was his wont when inclined to be facetious.

"You have your powder-bag, my dear Enid. If you see a particularly good specimen of ectoplasm in the course of the evening don't forget your father. I have a microscope, chemical reagents and everything ready. Perhaps even a small poltergeist might come your way. Any trifle would be welcome."

His bull's bellow of laughter followed them into the lift.

The provision merchant's establishment of Mr. Bolsover proved to be a euphemism for an old-fashioned grocer's shop in the most crowded part of Hammersmith. The neighbouring church was chiming out the three-quarters as the taxi drove up, and the shop was full of people. So Enid and Malone walked up and down outside. As they were so engaged another taxi drove up and a large, untidy-looking, ungainly bearded man in a suit of Harris tweed stepped out of it. He glanced at his watch and then began to pace the pavement. Presently he noted the others and came up to them.

"May I ask if you are the journalists who are going to attend the seance? . . . I thought so. Old Bolsover is terribly busy so you were wise to wait. Bless him, he is one of God's saints in his way."

"You are Mr. Algernon Mailey, I presume?"

"Yes. I am the gentleman whose credulity is giving rise to considerable anxiety upon the part of my friends, as one of the rags remarked the other day." His laugh was so infectious that the others were-bound to laugh also. Certainly, with his athletic proportions, which had run a little to seed but were still notable, and with his virile voice and strong if homely face, he gave no impression of instability.

"We are all labelled with some stigma by our opponents" said he. "I wonder what yours will be."

"We must not sail under false colours, Mr. Mailey," said Enid. "We are not yet among the believers."

"Quite right. You should take your time over it. It is infinitely the most important thing in the world, so it is worth taking time over. I took many years myself. Folk can be blamed for neglecting it, but no one can be blamed for being cautious in examination. Now I am all out for it, as you are aware, because I know it is true. There is such a difference between believing and knowing. I lecture a good deal. But I never want to convert my audience. I don't believe in sudden conversions. They are shallow, superficial things. All I want is to put the thing before the people as clearly as I can. I just tell them the truth and why we know it is the truth. Then my job is done. They can take it or leave it. If they are wise they will explore along the paths that I indicate. If they are unwise they miss their chance. I don't want to press them or to proselytize. It's their affair, not mine."

"Well, that seems a reasonable view," said Enid, who was attracted by the frank manner of their new acquaintance. They were standing now in the full flood of light cast by Bolsover's big plate-glass window. She had a good look at him, his broad forehead, his curious grey eyes, thoughtful and yet eager, his straw-coloured beard which indicated the outline of an aggressive chin. He was solidity personified--the very opposite of the fanatic whom she had imagined. His name had been a good deal in the papers lately as a protagonist in the long battle, and she remembered that it had never been mentioned without an answering snort from her father.

"I wonder," she said to Malone, "what would happen if Mr. Mailey were locked up in a room with Dad!"

Malone laughed. "There used to be a schoolboy question as to what would occur if an irresistible force were to strike an invincible obstacle."

"Oh, you are the daughter of Professor Challenger," said Mailey with interest. "He is a big figure in the scientific world. What a grand world it would be if it would only realize its own limitations."

"I don't quite follow you."

"It is this scientific world which is at the bottom of much of our materialism. It has helped us in comfort--if comfort is any use to us. Otherwise it has usually been a curse to us, for it has called itself progress and given us a false impression that we are making progress, whereas we are really drifting very steadily backwards."

"Really, I can't quite agree with you there, Mr. Mailey," said Malone, who was getting restive under what seemed to him dogmatic assertion. "Look at wireless. Look at the S.O.S. call at sea. Is that not a benefit to mankind?"

"Oh, it works out all right sometimes. I value my electric reading-lamp, and that is a product of science. It gives us, as I said before, comfort and occasionally safety."

"Why, then, do you depreciate it?"

"Because it obscures the vital thing--the object of life. We were not put into this planet in order that we should go fifty miles an hour in a motor-car, or cross the Atlantic in an airship, or send messages either with or without wires. These are the mere trimmings and fringes of life. But these men of science have so riveted our attention on these fringes that we forget the central object."

"I don't follow you."

"It is not how fast you go that matters, it is the object of your journey. It is not how you send a message, it is what the value of the message may be. At every stage this so-called progress may be a curse, and yet as long as we use the word we confuse it with real progress and imagine that we are doing that for which God sent us into the world."

"Which is?"

"To prepare ourselves for the next phase of life. There is mental preparation and spiritual preparation, and we are neglecting both. To be in an old age better men and women, more unselfish, more broadminded, more genial and tolerant, that is what we are for. It is a soul factory, and it is turning out a bad article. But Hullo!" he burst into his infectious laugh. "Here I am delivering my lecture in the street. Force of habit, you see. My son says that if you press the third button of my waistcoat I automatically deliver a lecture. But here is the good Bolsover to your rescue."

The worthy grocer had caught sight of them through the window and came bustling out, untying his white apron.

"Good evening, all! I won't have you waiting in the cold. Besides, there's the clock, and time's up. It does not do to keep them waiting. Punctuality for all that's my motto and theirs. My lads will shut up the shop. This way, and mind the sugar-barrel."

They threaded their way amid boxes of dried fruits and piles of cheese, finally passing between two great casks which hardly left room for the grocer's portly form. A narrow door beyond opened into the residential part of the establishment. Ascending the narrow stair, Bolsover threw open a door and the visitors found themselves in a considerable room in which a number of people were seated round a large table. There was Mrs. Bolsover herself, large, cheerful and buxom like her husband. Three daughters were all of the same pleasing type. There was an elderly woman who seemed to be some relation, and two other colourless females who were described as neighbours and Spiritualists. The only other man was a little grey-headed fellow with a pleasant face and quick, twinkling eyes, who sat at a harmonium in the corner.

"Mr. Smiley, our musician," said Bolsover. "I don't know what we could do without Mr. Smiley. It's vibrations, you know. Mr. Mailey could tell you about that. Ladies, you know Mr. Mailey, our very good friend. And these are the two inquirers--Miss Challenger and Mr. Malone." The Bolsover family all smiled genially, but the nondescript elderly person rose to her feet and surveyed them with an austere face.

"You're very welcome here, you two strangers," she said. "But we would say to you that we want outward reverence. We respect the shining ones and we will not have them insulted."

"I assure you we are very earnest and fairminded," said Malone.

"We've had our lesson. We haven't forgotten the Meadows' affair, Mr. Bolsover."

"No, no, Mrs. Seldon. That won't happen again. We were rather upset over that," Bolsover added, turning to the visitors. "That man came here as our guest, and when the lights were out he poked the other sitters with his finger so as to make them think it was a spirit hand. Then he wrote the whole thing up as an exposure in the public Press, when the only fraudulent thing present had been himself."

Malone was honestly shocked. "I can assure you we are incapable of such conduct."

The old lady sat down, but still regarded them with a suspicious eye. Bolsover bustled about and got things ready.

"You sit here" Mr. Mailey. Mr. Malone, will you sit between my wife and my daughter? Where would the young lady like to sit?""

Enid was feeling rather nervous. "I think," said she, "that I would like to sit next to Mr. Malone."

Bolsover chuckled and winked at his wife.

"Quite so. Most natural, I am sure." They all settled into their places. Mr. Bolsover had switched off the electric light, but a candle burned in the middle of the table. Malone thought what a picture it would have made for a Rembrandt. Deep shadows draped it in, but the yellow light flickered upon the circle of faces--the strong, homely, heavy features of Bolsover, the solid line of his family circle, the sharp, austere countenance of Mrs. Seldon, the earnest eyes and yellow beard of Mailey, the worn, tired faces of the two Spiritualist women, and finally the firm, noble profile of the girl who sat beside him. The whole world had suddenly narrowed down to that one little group, so intensely concentrated upon its own purpose.

On the table there was scattered a curious collection of objects, which had all the same appearance of tools which had long been used. There was a battered brass speaking-trumpet, very discoloured, a tambourine, a musical-box, and a number of smaller objects. "We never know what they may want," said Bolsover, waving his hand over them. " If Wee One calls for a thing and it isn't there she lets us know all about it--oh, yes, something shocking!"

"She has a temper of her own has Wee One," remarked Mrs. Bolsover.

"Why not, the pretty dear?" said the austere lady. "I expect she has enough to try it with researchers and what-not. I often wonder she troubles to come at all."

"Wee One is our little girl guide," said Bolsover. "You'll hear her presently."

"I do hope she will come," said Enid.

"Well, she never failed us yet, except when that man Meadows clawed hold of the trumpet and put it outside the circle."

"Who is the medium?" asked Malone.

"Well, we don't know ourselves. We all help, I think. Maybe, I give as much as anyone. And mother, she is a help."

"Our family is a co-operative store," said his wife, and everyone laughed.

"I thought one medium was necessary."

"It is usual but not necessary," said Mailey in his deep, authoritative voice. "Crawford showed that pretty clearly in the Gallagher seances when he proved, by weighing chairs, that everyone in the circle lost from half to two pounds at a sitting, though the medium, Miss Kathleen, lost as many as ten or twelve. Here the long series of sittings--How long, Mr. Bolsover?"

"Four years unbroken."

"The long series has developed everyone to some extent, so that there is a high average output from each, instead of an extraordinary amount from one."

"Output of what?"

"Animal magnetism, ectoplasm--in fact, power. That is the most comprehensive word. The Christ used that word. 'Much power has gone out of me'. It is 'dunamis' in the Greek, but the translators missed the point and translated it 'virtue'. If a good Greek scholar who was also a profound occult student was to re-translate the New Testament we should get some eye-openers. Dear old Ellis Powell did a little in that direction. His death was a loss to the world."

"Aye, indeed," said Bolsover in a reverent voice. "But now, before we get to work, Mr. Malone, I want you just to note one or two things. You see the white spots on the trumpet and the tambourine? Those are luminous points so that we can see where they are. The table is just our dining-table, good British oak. You can examine it if you like. But you'll see things that won't depend upon the table. Now, Mr. Smiley, out goes the light and we'll ask you for 'The Rock of Ages'."

The harmonium droned in the darkness and the circle sang. They sang very tunefully, too, for the girls had fresh voices and true ears. Low and vibrant, the solemn rhythm became most impressive when no sense but that of hearing was free to act. Their hands, according to instructions, were laid lightly upon the table, and they were warned not to cross their legs. Malone, with his hand touching Enid's, could feel the little quiverings which showed that her nerves were highly strung. The homely, jovial voice of Bolsover relieved the tension.

"That should do it," he said. "I feel as if the conditions were good to-night. Just a touch of frost in the air, too. I'll ask you now to join with me in prayer."

It was effective, that simple, earnest prayer in the darkness--an inky darkness which was only broken by the last red glow of a dying fire.

"Oh, great Father of us all," said the voice. "You who are beyond our thoughts and who yet pervade our lives, grant that all evil may be kept from us this night and that we may be privileged to get in touch, if only for an hour, with those who dwell upon a higher plane than ours. You are our Father as well as theirs. Permit us, for a short space, to meet in brotherhood, that we may have an added knowledge of that eternal life which awaits us, and so be helped during our years of waiting in this lower world." He ended with the "Our Father", in which we all joined. Then they all sat in expectant silence Outside was the dull roar of traffic and the occasional ill-tempered squawk of a passing car. Inside there was absolute stillness. Enid and Malone felt every sense upon the alert and every nerve on edge as they gazed out into the gloom.

"Nothing doing, mother," said Bolsover at last. "It's the strange company. New vibrations. They have to tune them in to get harmony. Give us another tune, Mr. Smiley." Again the harmonium droned. It was still playing when a woman's voice cried: "Stop! Stop! They are here!"

Again they waited without result.

"Yes! Yes! I heard Wee One. She is here, right enough. I'm sure of it."

Silence again, and then it came--such a marvel to the visitors, such a matter of course to the circle.

"Gooda evenin'!" cried a voice.

There was a burst of greeting and of welcoming laughter from the circle. They were all speaking at once. "Good evening, Wee One!" "There you are, dear!" "I knew you would come!" "Well done, little girl guide!"

"Gooda evenin', all!" replied the voice. "Wee One so glad see Daddy and Mummy and the rest. Oh, what big man with beard! Mailey, Mister Mailey, I meet him before. He big Mailey, I little femaley. Glad to see you, Mr. Big Man."

Enid and Malone listened with amazement, but it was impossible to be nervous in face of the perfectly natural way in which the company accepted it. The voice was very thin and high--more so than any artificial falsetto could produce. It was the voice of a female child. That was certain. Also that there was no female child in the room unless one had been smuggled in after the light went out. That was possible. But the voice seemed to be in the middle of the table. How could a child get there?

"Easy get there, Mr. Gentleman," said the voice, answering his unspoken thought. "Daddy strong man. Daddy lift Wee One on to table. Now I show what Daddy not able to do."

"The trumpet's up!" cried Bolsover.

The little circle of luminous paint rose noiselessly into the air. Now it was swaying above their heads.

"Go up and hit the ceiling!" cried Bolsover. Up it went and they heard the metallic tapping above them. Then the high voice came from above:

"Clever Daddy! Daddy got fishing-rod and put trumpet up to ceiling. But how Daddy make the voice, eh? What you say, pretty English Missy? Here is a present from Wee One."

Something soft dropped on Enid's lap. She put her hand down and felt it.

"It's a flower--a chrysanthemum. Thank you, Wee One!"

"An apport?" asked Mailey.

"No, no, Mr. Mailey," said Bolsover. "They were in the vase on the harmonium. Speak to her, Miss Challenger. Keep the vibrations going."

"Who are you, Wee One?" asked Enid, looking up at the moving spot above her.

"I am little black girl. Eight-year-old little black girl."

"Oh, come, dear," said mother in her rich, coaxing voice. "You were eight when you came to us first, and that was years ago."

"Years ago to you. All one time to me. I to do my job as eight-year child. When job done then Wee One become Big One all in one day. No time here, same as you have. I always eight-year-old."

"In the ordinary way they grow up exactly as we do here," said Mailey. "But if they have a special bit of work for which a child is needed, then as a child they remain It's a sort of arrested development."

"That's me. 'Rested envelopment'," said the voice proudly. "I learn good England when big man here."

They all laughed. It was the most genial, free-and-easy association possible. Malone heard Enid's voice whispering in his ear.

"Pinch me from time to time, Edward--just to make me sure that I am not in a dream."

"I have to pinch myself, too."

"What about your song, Wee One?" asked Bolsover.

"Oh, yes, indeeda! Wee One sing to you." She began some simple song, but faded away in a squeak, while the trumpet clattered on to the table.

"Ah, power run down!" said Mailey. "I think a little more music will set us right. 'Lead, Kindly Light'"

They sang the beautiful hymn together. As the verse closed an amazing thing happened--amazing, at least, to the novices, though it called for no remark from the circle. The trumpet still shone upon the table, but two voices, those apparently of a man and a woman, broke out in the air above them and joined very tunefully in the singing. The hymn died away and all was silence and tense expectancy once more.

It was broken by a deep male voice from the darkness. It was an educated English voice, well modulated, a voice which spoke in a fashion to which the good Bolsover could never attain.

"Good evening, friends. The power seems good tonight."

"Good evening, Luke. Good evening!" cried everyone.

"It is our teaching guide," Bolsover explained. "He is a high spirit from the sixth sphere who gives us instruction."

"I may seem high to you," said the voice. "But what am I to those in turn who instruct me! It is not my wisdom. Give me no credit. I do but pass it on."

"Always like that," said Bolsover. "No swank. It's a sign of his height."

"I see you have two inquirers present. Good evening, young lady! You know nothing of your own powers or destiny. You will find them out. Good evening, sir, you are on the threshold of great knowledge. Is there any subject upon which you would wish me to say a few words? I see that you are making notes."

Malone had, as a fact, disengaged his hand in the darkness and was jotting down in shorthand the sequence of events.

"What shall I speak of?"

"Of love and marriage," suggested Mrs. Bolsover, nudging her husband.

"Well, I will say a few words on that. I will not take long, for others are waiting. The room is crowded with spirit people. I wish you to understand that there is one man, and only one, for each woman, and one woman only for each man. When those two meet they fly together and are one through all the endless chain of existence. Until they meet all unions are mere accidents which have no meaning. Sooner or later each couple becomes complete. It may not be here. It may be in the next sphere where the sexes meet as they do on earth. Or it may be further delayed. But every man and every woman has his or her affinity, and will find it. Of earthly marriages perhaps one in five is permanent. The others are accidental. Real marriage is of the soul and spirit. Sex actions are a mere external symbol which mean nothing and are foolish, or even pernicious, when the thing which they should symbolize is wanting. Am I clear?"

"Very clear," said Mailey.

"Some have the wrong mate here. Some have no mate, which is more fortunate. But all will sooner or later get the right mate. That is certain. Do not think that you will not necessarily have your present husband when you pass over."

"Gawd be praised! Gawd be thanked!" cried a voice.

"No. Mrs. Melder, it is love--real love--which unites us here. He goes his way. You go yours. You are on separate planes, perhaps. Some day you will each find your own, when your youth has come back as it will over here."

"You speak of love. Do you mean sexual love?" asked Mailey.

"Where are we gettin' to?" murmured Mrs. Bolsover.

"Children are not born here. That is only on the earth plane. It was this aspect of marriage to which the great Teacher referred when he said: 'There will be neither marriage nor giving in marriage'. No! It is purer, deeper, more wonderful, a unity of souls, a complete merging of interests and knowledge without a loss of individuality. The nearest you ever get to it is the first high passion, too beautiful for physical expression when two high-souled lovers meet upon your plane. They find lower expression afterwards, but they will always in their hearts know that the first delicate, exquisite soul-union was the more lovely. So it is with us. Any question?"

"If a woman loves two men equally, what then?" asked Malone.

"It seldom happens. She nearly always knows which is really nearest to her. If she really did so, then it would be a proof that neither was the real affinity, for he is bound to stand high above all. Of course, if she . . ."

The voice trailed off and the trumpet fell.

"Sing 'Angels are hoverin' around'!" cried Bolsover. "Smiley, hit that old harmonium. The vibrations are at zero."

Another bout of music, another silence, and then a most dismal voice. Never had Enid heard so sad a voice. It was like clods on a coffin. At first it was a deep mutter. Then it was a prayer--a Latin prayer apparently--for twice the word Domine sounded and once the word peccavimus. There was an indescribable air of depression and desolation in the room. "For God's sake what is it?" cried Malone.

The circle was equally puzzled.

"Some poor chap out of the lower spheres, I think," said Bolsover. "Orthodox folk say we should avoid them. I say we should hurry up and help them."

"Right, Bolsover!" said Mailey, with hearty approval. "Get on with it, quick!"

"Can we do anything for you, friend?"

There was silence.

"He doesn't know. He doesn't understand the conditions. Where is Luke? He'll know what to do."

"What is it, friend?" asked the pleasant voice of the guide.

"There is some poor fellow here. We want to help him."

"Ah! yes, yes, he has come from the outer darkness," said Luke in a sympathetic voice. "He doesn't know. He doesn't understand. They come over here with a fixed idea, and when they find the real thing is quite different from anything they have been taught by the Churches, they are helpless. Some adapt themselves and they go on. Others don't, and they just wander on unchanging, like this man. He was a cleric, and a very narrow, bigoted one. This is the growth of his own mental seed sown upon earth--sown in ignorance and reaped in misery."

"What is amiss with him?"

"He does not know he is dead. He walks in the mist. It is all an evil dream to him. He has been years so. To him it seems an eternity."

"Why do you not tell him--instruct him?"

"We cannot. We--"

The trumpet crashed.

"Music, Smiley, music! Now the vibrations should be better."

"The higher spirits cannot reach earth-bound folk," said Mailey. "They are in very different zones of vibration. It is we who are near them and can help them."

"Yes, you! you!" cried the voice of Luke.

"Mr. Mailey, speak to him. You know him!" The low mutter had broken out again in the same weary monotone.

"Friend, I would have a word with you," said Mailey in a firm, loud voice. The mutter ceased and one felt that the invisible presence was straining its attention. " Friend, we are sorry at your condition. You have passed on. You see us and you wonder why we do not see you. You are in the other world. But you do not know it, because it is not as you expected. You have not been received as you imagined. It is because you imagined wrong. Understand that all is well, and that God is good, and that all happiness is awaiting you if you will but raise your mind and pray for help, and above all think less of your own condition and more of those other poor souls who are round you."

There was a silence and Luke spoke again.

"He has heard you. He wants to thank you. He has some glimmer now of his condition. It will grow within him. He wants to know if he may come again."

"Yes! yes!" cried Bolsover. "We have quite a number who report progress from time to time. God bless you, friend. Come as often as you can." The mutter had ceased and there seemed to be a new feeling of peace in the air. The high voice of Wee One was heard.

"Plenty power still left. Red Cloud here. Show what he can do, if Daddy likes."

"Red Cloud is our Indian control. He is usually busy when any purely physical phenomena have to be done. You there, Red Cloud?""

Three loud thuds, like a hammer on wood, sounded from the darkness.

"Good evening, Red Cloud!"

A new voice, slow, staccato, laboured, sounded above them.

"Good day, Chief! How the squaw? How the papooses? Strange faces in wigwam to-night."

"Seeking knowledge, Red Cloud. Can you show what you can do?"

"I try. Wait a little. Do all I can."

Again there was a long hush of expectancy. Then the novices were faced once more with the miraculous.

There came a dull glow in the darkness. It was apparently a wisp of luminous vapour. It whisked across from one side to the other and then circled in the air. By degrees it condensed into a circular disc of radiance about the size of a bull's-eye lantern. It cast no reflection round it and was simply a clean-cut circle in the gloom. Once it approached Enid's face and Malone saw it clearly from the side.

"Why, there is a hand holding it!" he cried, with sudden suspicion.

"Yes, there is a materialized hand," said Mailey. "I can see it clearly."

"Would you like it to touch you" Mr. Malone?"

"Yes, if it will."

The light vanished and an instant afterwards Malone felt pressure upon his own hand. He turned it palm upwards and clearly felt three fingers laid across it, smooth, warm fingers of adult size. He closed his own fingers and the hand seemed to melt away in his grasp.

"It has gone!" he gasped.

"Yes! Red Cloud is not very good at materializations. Perhaps we don't give him the proper sort of power. But his lights are excellent."

Several more had broken out. They were of different types, slow-moving clouds and little dancing sparks like glow-worms. At the same time both visitors were conscious of a cold wind which blew upon their faces. It was no delusion, for Enid felt her hair stream across her forehead.

"You fed the rushing wind," said Mailey. "Some of these lights would pass for tongues of fire, would they not? Pentecost does not seem such a very remote or impossible thing, does it?"

The tambourine had risen in the air, and the dot of luminous paint showed that it was circling round. Presently it descended and touched their heads each in turn. Then with a jingle it quivered down upon the table.

"Why a tambourine? It seems always to be a tambourine," remarked Malone.

"It is a convenient little instrument," Mailey explained.

"The only one which shows automatically by its noise where it is flying. I don't know what other I could suggest except a musical-box."

"Our box here flies round somethin' amazin' " said Mrs. Bolsover. "It thinks nothing of winding itself up in the air as it flies. It's a heavy box too."

"Nine pounds," said Bolsover. "Well, we seem to have got to the end of things. I don't think we shall get much more to-night. It has not been a bad sitting--what I should call a fair average sitting. We must wait a little before we turn on the light. Well, Mr. Malone, what do you think of it? Let's have any objections now before we part. That's the worst of you inquirers, you know. You often bottle things up in your own minds and let them loose afterwards, when it would have been easy to settle it at the time. Very nice and polite to our faces, and then we are a gang of swindlers in the report."

Malone's head was throbbing and he passed his hand over his heated brow.

"I am confused," he said, "but impressed. Oh, yes, certainly impressed. I've read of these things, but it is very different when you see them. What weighs most with me is the obvious sincerity and sanity of all you people. No one could doubt that."

"Come. We're gettin' on." said Bolsover.

"I try to think the objections which would be raised by others who were not present. I'll have to answer them. First, there is the oddity of it all. It is so different to our preconceptions of spirit people."

"We must fit our theories to the facts," said Mailey. "Up to now we have fitted the facts to our theories. You must remember that we have been dealing to-night--with all respect to our dear good hosts--with a simple, primitive, earthly type of spirit, who has his very definite uses, but is not to be taken as an average type. You might as well take the stevedore whom you see on the quay as being a representative Englishman."

"There's Luke" said Bolsover.

"Ah, yes, he is, of course, very much higher. You heard him and could judge. What else, Mr. Malone?"

"Well, the darkness! Everything done in darkness. Why should all mediumship be associated with gloom?"

"You mean all physical mediumship. That is the only branch of the subject which needs darkness. It is purely chemical, like the darkness of the photographic room. It preserves the delicate physical substance which, drawn from the human body, is the basis of these phenomena. A cabinet is used for the purpose of condensing this same vaporous substance and helping it to solidify. Am I clear?"

"Yes, but it is a pity all the same. It gives a horrible air of deceit to the whole business."

"We get it now and again in the light, Mr. Malone," said Bolsover. "I don't know if Wee One is gone yet. Wait a bit! Where are the matches?" He lit the candle, which set them all blinking after their long darkness, "Now let us see what we can do."

There was a round wood platter or circle of wood lying among the miscellaneous objects littered over the table to serve as playthings for the strange forces. Bolsover stared at it. They all stared at it. They had risen but no one was within three feet of it.

"Please, Wee One, please!" cried Mrs. Bolsover. Malone could hardly believe his eyes. The disc began to move. It quivered and then rattled upon the table, exactly as the lid of a boiling pot might do.

"Up with it, Wee One!" They were all clapping their hands.

The circle of wood, in the full light of the candle, rose upon edge and stood there shaking, as if trying to keep its balance.

"Give three tilts, Wee One."

The disc inclined forward three times. Then it fell flat and remained so.

"I am so glad you have seen that," said Mailey. "There is Telekenesis in its simplest and most decisive form."

"I could not have believed it!" cried Enid.

"Nor I," said Malone. "I have extended my knowledge of what is possible. Mr. Bolsover, you have enlarged my views."

"Good, Mr. Malone!"

"As to the power at the back of these things I am still ignorant. As to the thing themselves I have now and henceforward not the slightest doubt in the world. I know that they are true. I wish you all good night. It is not likely that Miss Challenger or I will ever forget the evening that we have spent under your roof"

It was like another world when they came out into the frosty air, and saw the taxis bearing back the pleasure-seekers from the theatre or cinema palace. Mailey stood beside them while they waited for a cab.

"I know exactly how you feel," he said, smiling. "You look at all these bustling, complacent people, and you marvel to think how little they know of the possibilities of life. Don't you want to stop them? Don't you want to tell them? And yet they would only think you a liar or a lunatic. Funny situation, is it not?"

"I've lost all my bearings for the moment."

"They will come back to-morrow morning. It is curious how fleeting these impressions are. You will persuade yourselves that you have been dreaming. Well, good-bye--and let me know if I can help your studies in the future." The friends--one could hardly yet call them lovers were absorbed in thought during their drive home. When he reached Victoria Gardens Malone escorted Enid to the door of the flat, but he did not go in with her. Somehow the jeers of Challenger which usually rather woke sympathy within him would now get upon his nerves. As it was he heard his greeting in the hall.

"Well, Enid. Where's your spook? Spill him out of the bag on the floor and let us have a look at him." His evening's adventure ended as it had begun, with a bellow of laughter which pursued him down the lift.

Polter, the famous novelist, was there, a brilliant man with a subtle mind, which he used too often to avoid obvious truth and to defend some impossible position for the sake of the empty dialectic exercise. He was holding forth now to an admiring, but not entirely a subservient audience.

"Science," said he, "is gradually sweeping the world clear of all these old cobwebs of superstition. The world was like some old, dusty attic, and the sun of science is bursting in, flooding it with light, while the dust settles gradually to the floor."

"By science," said someone maliciously, "you mean, of course, men like Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Barrett, Lombroso, Richet, and so forth."

Polter was not accustomed to be countered, and usually became rude.

"No, sir, I mean nothing so preposterous," he answered, with a glare. "No name, however eminent, can claim to stand for science so long as he is a member of an insignificant minority of scientific men."

"He is, then, a crank," said Pollifex, the artist, who usually played jackal to Polter.

The objector, one Millworthy, a free-lance of journalism, was not to be so easily silenced.

"Then Galileo was a crank in his day," said he. "And Harvey was a crank when he was laughed at over the circulation of the blood."

"It's the circulation of the Daily Gazette which is at stake," said Marrible, the humorist of the club. "If they get off their stunt I don't suppose they care a tinker's curse what is truth or what is not."

"Why such things should be examined at all, except in a police court, I can't imagine," said Polter. "It is a dispersal of energy, a misdirection of human thought into channels which lead nowhere. We have plenty of obvious, material things to examine. Let us get on with our job."

Atkinson, the surgeon, was one of the circle, and had sat silently listening. Now he spoke.

"I think the learned bodies should find more time for the consideration of psychic matters."

"Less," said Polter.

"You can't have less than nothing. They ignore them altogether. Some time ago I had a series of cases of telepathic rapport which I wished to lay before the Royal Society. My colleague Wilson, the zoologist, also had a paper which he proposed to read. They went in together. His was accepted and mine rejected. The title of his paper was 'The Reproductive System of the Dung-Beetle'."

There was a general laugh.

"Quite right, too," said Polter. "The humble dung-beetle was at least a fact. All this psychic stuff is not."

"No doubt you have good grounds for your views," chirped the mischievous Millworthy, a mild youth with a velvety manner. "I have little time for solid reading, so I should like to ask you which of Dr. Crawford's three books you consider the best?"

"I never heard of the fellow."

Millworthy simulated intense surprise.

"Good Heavens, man! Why, he is the authority. If you want pure laboratory experiments those are the books. You might as well lay down the law about zoology and confess that you had never heard of Darwin."

"This is not science," said Polter, emphatically.

"What is really not science," said Atkinson, with some heat, "is the laying down of the law on matters which you have not studied. It is talk of that sort which has brought me to the edge of Spiritualism, when I compare this dogmatic ignorance with the earnest search for truth conducted by the great Spiritualists. Many of them took twenty years of work before they formed their conclusions."

"But their conclusions are worthless because they are upholding a formed opinion."

"But each of them fought a long fight before he formed that opinion. I know a few of them, and there is not one who did not take a lot of convincing." Polter shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, they can have their spooks if it makes them happier so long as they let me keep my feet firm on the ground."

"Or stuck in the mud," said Atkinson.

"I would rather be in the mud with sane people thin in the air with lunatics," said Polter. "I know some of these Spiritualists people and I believe that you can divide them equally into fools and rogues."

Malone had listened with interest and then with a growing indignation. Now he suddenly took fire.

"Look here, Polter," he said, turning his chair towards the company, "it is fools and dolts like you which are holding back the world's progress. You admit that you have read nothing of this, and I'll swear you have seen nothing. Yet you use the position and the name which you have won in other matters in order to discredit a number of people who, whatever they may be, are certainly very earnest and very thoughtful."

"Oh," said Polter, "I had no idea you had got so far. You don't dare to say so in your articles. You are a Spiritualist then. That rather discounts your views, does it not?"

"I am not a Spiritualist, but I am an honest inquirer, and that is more than you have ever been. You call them rogues and fools, but, little as I know, I am sure that some of them are men and women whose boots you are not worthy to clean."

"Oh, come, Malone!" cried one or two voices, but the insulted Polter was on his feet. "It's men like you who empty this club," he cried, as he swept out. "I shall certainly never come here again to be insulted."

"I say, you've done it, Malone!"

"I felt inclined to help him out with a kick. Why should he ride roughshod over other people's feelings and beliefs? He has got on and most of us haven't, so he thinks it's a condescension to come among us."

"Dear old Irishman!" said Atkinson, patting his shoulder. "Rest, perturbed spirit, rest! But I wanted to have a word with you. Indeed, I was waiting here because I did not want to interrupt you."

"I've had interruptions enough!" cried Malone. "How could I work with that damned donkey braying in my ear?"

"Well, I've only a word to say. I've got a sitting with Linden, the famous medium of whom I spoke to you, at the Psychic College to-night. I have an extra ticket. Would you care to come?"

"Come? I should think so!"

"I have another ticket. I should have asked Polter if he had not been so offensive. Linden does not mind sceptics, but objects to scoffers. Who should I ask?"

"Let Miss Enid Challenger come. We work together, you know."

"Why, of course I will. Will you let her know?"

"Certainly."

"It's at seven o'clock to-night. The Psychic College. You know the place down at Holland Park."

"Yes, I have the address. Very well, Miss Challenger and I will certainly be there."

Behold the pair, then, upon a fresh psychic adventure. They picked Atkinson up at Wimpole Street, and then traversed that long, roaring rushing, driving belt of the great city which extends through Oxford Street and Bayswater to Notting Hill and the stately Victorian houses of Holland Park. It was at one of these that the taxi drew up, a large, imposing building, standing back a little from the road. A smart maid admitted them, and the subdued light of the tinted hall-lamp fell upon shining linoleum and polished woodwork with the gleam of white marble statuary in the corner. Enid's female perceptions told her of a well-run, well-appointed establishment, with a capable direction at the head. This direction took the shape of a kindly Scottish lady who met them in the hall and greeted Mr. Atkinson as an old friend. She was, in turn, introduced to the journalists as Mrs. Ogilvy. Malone had already heard how her husband and she had founded and run this remarkable institute, which is the centre of psychic experiment in London, at a very great cost, both in labour and in money, to themselves.

"Linden and his wife have gone up," said Mrs. Ogilvy. "He seems to think that the conditions are favourable. The rest are in the drawing-room. Won't you join them for a few minutes?"

Quite a number of people had gathered for the seance, some of them old psychic students who were mildly interested, others, beginners who looked about them with rather startled eyes, wondering what was going to happen next. A tall man was standing near the door who turned and disclosed the tawny beard and open face of Algernon Mailey. He shook hands with the newcomers.

"Another experience, Mr. Malone? Well, I thought you gave a very fair account of the last. You are still a neophyte, but you are well within the gates of the temple. Are you alarmed, Miss Challenger?"

"I don't think I could be while you were around," she answered.

He laughed.

"Of course, a materialization seance is a little different to any other--more impressive, in a way. You'll find it very instructive, Malone, as bearing upon psychic photography and other matters. By the way, you should try for a psychic picture. The famous Hope works upstairs."

"I always thought that that at least was fraud."

"On the contrary, I should say it was the best established of all phenomena, the one which leaves the most permanent proof. I've been a dozen times under every possible test conditions. The real trouble is, not that it lends itself to fraud, but that it lends itself to exploitation by that villainous journalism which cares only for a sensation. Do you know anyone here?"

"No, we don't."

"The tall, handsome lady is the Duchess of Rossland. Then, there are Lord and Lady Montnoir, the middle-aged couple near the fire. Real, good folk and among the very few of the aristocracy who have shown earnestness and moral courage in this matter. The talkative lady is Miss Badley, who lives for seances, a jaded Society woman in search of new sensations--always visible, always audible, and always empty. I don't know the two men. I heard someone say they were researchers from the university. The stout man with the lady in black is Sir James Smith--they lost two boys in the war. The tall, dark person, is a weird man named Barclay, who lives, I understand, in one room and seldom comes out save for a seance."

"And the man with the horn glasses?"

"That is a pompous ass named Weatherby. He is one of those who wander about on the obscure edges of Masonry, talking with whispers and reverence of mysteries where no mystery is. Spiritualism, with its very real and awful mysteries, is, to him, a vulgar thing because it brought consolation to common folk, but he loves to read papers on the Palladian Cultus, ancient and accepted Scottish rites, and Baphometic figures. Eliphas Levi is his prophet."

"It sounds very learned." said Enid.

"Or very absurd. But, hullo! Here are mutual friends." The two Bolsovers had arrived, very hot and frowsy and genial. There is no such leveller of classes as Spiritualism, and the charwoman with psychic force is the superior of the millionaire who lacks it. The Bolsovers and the aristocrats fraternized instantly. The Duchess was just asking for admission to the grocer's circle, when Mrs. Ogilvy bustled in.

"I think everyone is here now," she said. "It is time to go upstairs."

The seance room was a large, comfortable chamber on the first floor, with a circle of easy chairs, and a curtain-hung divan which served as a cabinet. The medium and his wife were waiting there. Mr. Linden was a gentle, large-featured man, stoutish in build, deep-chested, clean-shaven, with dreamy, blue eyes and flaxen, curly hair which rose in a pyramid at the apex of his head. He was of middle age. His wife was rather younger, with the sharp, querulous expression of the tired housekeeper, and quick, critical eyes, which softened into something like adoration when she looked at her husband. Her role was to explain matters, and to guard his interests while he was unconscious.

"The sitters had better just take their own places," said the medium. "If you can alternate the sexes it is as well. Don't cross your knees, it breaks the current. If we have a materialization, don't grab at it. If you do, you are liable to injure me."

The two sleuths of the Research Society looked at each other knowingly. Mailey observed it.

"Quite right," he said. "I have seen two cases of dangerous haemorrhage in the medium brought on by that very cause."

"Why?" asked Malone.

"Because the ectoplasm used is drawn from the medium. It recoils upon him like a snapped elastic band. Where it comes through the skin you get a bruise. Where it comes from mucous membrane you get bleeding."

"And when it comes from nothing, you get nothing"" said the researcher with a grin.

"I will explain the procedure in a few words," said Mrs. Ogilvy, when everyone was seated. "Mr. Linden does not enter the cabinet at all. He sits outside it, and as he tolerates red light you will be able to satisfy yourselves that he does not leave his seat. Mrs. Linden sits on the other side. She is there to regulate and explain. In the first place we would wish you to examine the cabinet. One of you will also please lock the door on the inside and be responsible for the key."

The cabinet proved to be a mere tent of hangings, detached from the wall and standing on a solid platform. The researchers ferreted about inside it and stamped on the boards. All seemed solid.

"What is the use of it?" Malone whispered to Mailey.

"It serves as a reservoir and condensing place for the ectoplasmic vapour from the medium, which would otherwise diffuse over the room."

"It has been known to serve other purposes also," remarked one of the researchers, who overheard the conversation.

"That's true enough," said Mailey philosophically. "I am all in favour of caution and supervision."

"Well, it seems fraud-proof on this occasion, if the medium sits outside." The two researchers were agreed on this.

The medium was seated on one side of the little tent, his wife on the other. The light was out, and a small red lamp near the ceiling was just sufficient to enable outlines to be clearly seen. As the eyes became accustomed to it some detail could also be observed.

"Mr. Linden will begin by some clairvoyant readings" said Mrs. Linden. Her whole attitude, seated beside the cabinet with her hands on her lap and the air of a proprietor, made Enid smile, for she thought of Mrs. Jarley and her waxworks.

Linden, who was not in a trance, began to give clairvoyance. It was not very good. Possibly the mixed influence of so many sitters of various types at close quarters was too disturbing. That was the excuse which he gave himself when several of his descriptions were unrecognized. But Malone was more shocked by those which were recognized, since it was so clear that the word was put into the medium's mouth. It was the folly of the sitter rather than the fault of the medium, but it was disconcerting all the same.

"I see a young man with brown eyes and a rather drooping moustache."

"Oh, darling, darling, have you then come back!" cried Miss Badley. "Oh, has he a message?"

"He sends his love and does not forget."

"Oh, how evidential! It is so exactly what the dear boy would have said! My first lover, you know," she added, in a simpering voice to the company. "He never fails to come. Mr. Linden has brought him again and again."

"There is a young fellow in khaki building up on the left. I see a symbol over his head. It might be a Greek cross."

"Jim--it is surely Jim!" cried Lady Smith.

"Yes. He nods his head."

"And the Greek cross is probably a propeller," said Sir James. "He was in the Air Service, you know." Malone and Enid were both rather shocked. Mailey was also uneasy.

"This is not good," he whispered to Enid. "Wait a bit ! You will get something better."

There were several good recognitions, and then someone resembling Summerlee was described for Malone. This was wisely discounted by him, since Linden might have been in the audience on the former occasion. Mrs. Debbs' exhibition seemed to him far more convincing than that of Linden.

"Wait a bit!" Mailey repeated.

"The medium will now try for materializations," said Mrs. Linden. "If the figures appear I would ask you not to touch them, save by request. Victor will tell you if you may do so. Victor is the medium's control."

The medium had settled down in his chair and he now began to draw long, whistling breaths with deep intakes, puffing the air out between his lips. Finally he steadied down and seemed to sink into a deep coma, his chin upon his breast. Suddenly he spoke, but it seemed that his voice was better modulated and more cultivated than before.

"Good evening, all!" said the voice.

There was a general murmur of "Good evening, Victor."

"I am afraid that the vibrations are not very harmonious. The sceptical element is present, but not, I think, predominant, so that we may hope for results. Martin Lightfoot is doing what he can."

"That is the Indian control" Mailey whispered.

"I think that if you would start the gramophone it would be helpful. A hymn is always best, though there is no real objection to secular music. Give us what you think best, Mrs. Ogilvy."

There was the rasping of a needle which had not yet found its grooves. Then "Lead, Kindly Light" was churned out. The audience joined in in a subdued fashion. Mrs. Ogilvy then changed it to "O, God, our help in ages past".

"They often change the records themselves," said Mrs. Ogilvy, "but to-night there is not enough power."

"Oh, yes," said the voice. "There is enough power, Mrs. Ogilvy, but we are anxious to conserve it all for the materializations. Martin says they are building up very well."

At this moment the curtain in front of the cabinet began to sway. It bellied out as if a strong wind were behind it. At the same time a breeze was felt by all who were in the circle, together with a sensation of cold.

"It is quite chilly," whispered Enid, with a shiver.

"It is not a subjective feeling," Mailey answered. "Mr. Harry Price has tested it with thermometric readings. So did Professor Crawford."

"My God!" cried a startled voice. It belonged to the pompous dabbler in mysteries, who was suddenly faced with a real mystery. The curtains of the cabinet had parted and a human figure had stolen noiselessly out. There was the medium clearly outlined on one side. There was Mrs. Linden, who had sprung to her feet, on the other. And, between them, the little black, hesitating figure, which seemed to be terrified at its own position. Mrs. Linden soothed and encouraged it.

"Don't be alarmed, dear. It is all quite right. No one will hurt you."

"It is someone who has never been through before," she explained to the company. "Naturally it seems very strange to her. Just as strange as if we broke into their world. That's right, dear. You are gaining strength, I can see. Well done!"

The figure was moving forward. Everyone sat spellbound, with staring eyes. Miss Badley began to giggle hysterically. Weatherby lay back in his chair, gasping with horror. Neither Malone nor Enid felt any fear, but were consumed with curiosity. How marvellous to hear the humdrum flow of life in the street outside and to be face to face with such a sight as that.

Slowly the figure moved round. Now it was close to Enid and between her and the red light. Stooping, she could get the silhouette sharply outlined. It was that of a little, elderly woman, with sharp, clear-cut features.

"It's Susan!" cried Mrs. Bolsover. "Oh, Susan, don't you know me?"

The figure turned and nodded her head.

"Yes, yes, dear, it is your sister Susie," cried her husband. "I never saw her in anything but black. Susan, speak to us!"

The head was shaken.

"They seldom speak the first time they come," said Mrs. Linden, whose rather blase, business-like air was in contrast to the intense emotion of the company. "I'm afraid she can't hold together long. Ah, there! She has gone!"

The figure had disappeared. There had been some backward movement towards the cabinet, but it seemed to the observers that she sank into the ground before she reached it. At any rate, she was gone.

"Gramophone, please!" said Mrs. Linden. Everyone relaxed and sat back with a sigh. The gramophone struck up a lively air. Suddenly the curtains parted, and a second figure appeared.

It was a young girl, with flowing hair down her back. She came forward swiftly and with perfect assurance to the centre of the circle.

Mrs. Linden laughed in a satisfied way.

"Now you will get something good," she said. "Here is Lucille."

"Good evening, Lucille!" cried the Duchess. "I met you last month, you will remember, when your medium came to Maltraver Towers."

"Yes, yes, lady, I remember you. You have a little boy, Tommy, on our side of life. No, no, not dead, lady! We are far more alive than you are. All the fun and frolic are with us!" She spoke in a high clear voice and perfect English.

"Shall I show you what we do over here?" She began a graceful, gliding dance, while she whistled as melodiously as a bird. "Poor Susan could not do that. Susan has had no practice. Lucille knows how to use a built-up body."

"Do you remember me, Lucille?" asked Mailey.

"I remember you, Mr. Mailey. Big man with yellow beard."

For the second time in her life Enid had to pinch herself hard to satisfy herself that she was not dreaming. Was this graceful creature, who had now sat down in the centre of the circle, a real materialization of ectoplasm, used for the moment as a machine for expression by a soul that had passed, or was it an illusion of the senses, or was it a fraud? There were the three possibilities. An illusion was absurd when all had the same impression. Was it a fraud? But this was certainly not the little old woman. She was inches taller and fair, not dark. And the cabinet was fraud-proof. It had been meticulously examined. Then it was true. But if it were true, what a vista of possibilities opened out. Was it not far the greatest matter which could claim the attention of the world!

Meanwhile, Lucille had been so natural and the situation was so normal that even the most nervous had relaxed. The girl answered most cheerfully to every question, and they rained upon her from every side.

"Where did you live, Lucille?"

"Perhaps I had better answer that," interposed Mrs. Linden. "It will save the power. Lucille was bred in South Dakota in the United States, and passed over at the age of fourteen. We have verified some of her statements."

"Are you glad you died, Lucille?"

"Glad for my own sake. Sorry for mother."

"Has your mother seen you since?"

"Poor mother is a shut box. Lucille cannot open the lid."

"Are you happy?"

"Oh, yes, so gloriously happy."

"Is it right that you can come back?"

"Would God allow it if it were not right? What a wicked man you must be to ask!"

"What religion were you?"

"We were Roman Catholics."

"Is that the right religion?"

"All religions are right if they make you better."

"Then it does not matter."

"It is what people do in daily life, not what they believe."

"Tell us more, Lucille."

"Lucille has little time. There are others who wish to come. If Lucille uses too much power, the others have less. Oh, God is very good and kind! You poor people on earth do not know how good and kind He is because it is grey down there. But it is grey for your own good. It is to give you your chance to earn all the lovely things which wait for you. But you can only tell how wonderful He is when you get over here."

"Have you seen him?"

"Seen Him! How could you see God? No, no, He is all round us and in us and in everything, but we do not see Him. But I have seen the Christ. Oh, He was glorious, glorious! Now, good-bye--good-bye!" She backed towards the cabinet and sank into the shadows.

Now came a tremendous experience for Malone. A small, dark, rather broad figure of a woman appeared slowly from the cabinet. Mrs. Linden encouraged her, and then came across to the journalist.

"It is for you. You can break the circle. Come up to her."

Malone advanced and peered, awestruck, into the face of the apparition. There was not a foot between them. Surely that large head, that solid, square outline was familiar! He put his face still nearer--it was almost touching. He strained his eyes. It seemed to him that the features were semi-fluid, moulding themselves into a shape, as if some unseen hand was modelling them in putty. "Mother! " he cried. "Mother! "

Instantly the figure threw up both her hands in a wild gesture of joy. The motion seemed to destroy her equilibrium and she vanished.

"She had not been through before. She could not speak," said Mrs. Linden, in her business-like way. "It was your mother."

Malone went back half-stunned to his seat. It is only when these things come to one's own address that one understands their full force. His mother! Ten years in her grave and yet standing before him. Could he swear it was his mother? No, he could not. Was he morally certain that it was his mother? Yes, he was morally certain. He was shaken to the core.

But other wonders diverted his thoughts. A young man had emerged briskly from the cabinet and had advanced to the front of Mailey, where he had halted.

"Hullo, Jock! Dear old Jock!" said Mailey. "My nephew," he explained to the company. "He always comes when I am with Linden."

"The power is sinking," said the lad, in a clear voice. "I can't stay very long. I am so glad to see you, Uncle. You know, we can see quite clearly in this light, even if you can't."

"Yes, I know you can. I say, Jock. I wanted to tell you that I told your mother I had seen you. She said her Church taught her it was wrong."

"I know. And that I was a demon. Oh, it is rotten, rotten, rotten, and rotten things will fall!" His voice broke in a sob.

"Don't blame her Jock, she believes this."

"No, no, I don't blame her! She will know better some day. The day is coming soon when all truth will be manifest and all these corrupt Churches will be swept off the earth with their cruel doctrines and their caricatures of God."

"Why, Jock, you are becoming quite a heretic!"

"Love, Uncle! Love! That is all that counts. What matter what you believe if you are sweet and kind and unselfish as the Christ was of old?"

"Have you seen Christ?" asked someone.

"Not yet. Perhaps the time may come."

"Is he not in Heaven, then?"

"There are many heavens. I am in a very humble one. But it is glorious all the same."

Enid had thrust her head forward during this dialogue. Her eyes had got used to the light and she could see more clearly than before. The man who stood within a few feet of her was not human. Of that she had no doubt whatever, and yet the points were very subtle. Something in his strange, yellow-white colouring as contrasted with the faces of her neighbours. Something, also, in the curious stiffness of his carriage, as of a man in very rigid stays.

"Now, Jock," said Mailey, "give an address to the company. Tell them a few words about your life."

The figure hung his head, exactly as a shy youth would do in life.

"Oh, Uncle, I can't."

"Come, Jock, we love to listen to you."

"Teach the folk what death is," the figure began. "God wants them to know. That is why He lets us come back. It is nothing. You are no more changed than if you went into the next room. You can't believe you are dead. I didn't. It was only when I saw old Sam that I knew, for I was certain that he was dead, anyhow. Then I came back to mother. And" his voice broke--"she would not receive me."

"Never mind, dear old Jock," said Mailey. "She will learn wisdom."

"Teach them the truth! Teach it to them! Oh, it u so much more important than all the things men talk about. If papers for one week gave as much attention to psychic things as they do to football, it would be known to all. It is ignorance which stands--"

The observers were conscious of a sort of flash towards the cabinet, but the youth had disappeared.

"Power run down," said Mailey. "Poor lad, he held on to the last. He always did. That was how he died.

There was a long pause. The gramophone started again. Then there was a movement of the curtains. Something was emerging. Mrs. Linden sprang up and waved the figure back. The medium for the first time stirred in his chair and groaned.

"What is the matter, Mrs. Linden?"

"Only half-formed," she answered. "The lower face had not materialized. Some of you would have been alarmed. I think that we shall have no more to-night The power has sunk very low."

So it proved. The lights were gradually turned on. The medium lay with a white face and a clammy brow in his chair, while his wife sedulously watched over him, unbuttoning his collar and bathing his face from a water-glass. The company broke into little groups, discussing what they had seen.

"Oh, wasn't it thrilling?" cried Miss Badley. "It really was most exciting. But what a pity we could not see the one with the semi-materialized face."

"Thanks, I have seen quite enough," said the pompous mystic, all the pomposity shaken out of him. "I confess that it has been rather too much for my nerves."

Mr. Atkinson found himself near the psychic researchers.

"Well, what do you make of it?" he asked.

"I have seen it better done at Maskelyne's Hall," said one.

"Oh, come, Scott!," said the other. "You've no right to say that. You admitted that the cabinet was fraud-proof."

"Well, so do the committees who go on the stage at Maskelyne's."

"Yes, but it is Maskelyne's own stage. This is not Linden's own stage. He has no machinery."

"Populus vult decepi," the other answered, shrugging his shoulders. " I should certainly reserve judgment." He moved away with the dignity of one who cannot be deceived, while his more rational companion still argued with him as they went.

"Did you hear that?" said Atkinson. "There is a certain class of psychic researcher who is absolutely incapable of receiving evidence. They misuse their brains by straining them to find a way round when the road is quite clear before them. When the human race advances into its new kingdom, these intellectual men will form the absolute rear."

"No, no," said Mailey, laughing. "The bishops are predestined to be the rearguard. I see them all marching in step, a solid body, with their gaiters and cassocks--the last in the whole world to reach spiritual truth."

"Oh, come," said Enid, "that is too severe. They are all good men."

"Of course they are. It's quite physiological. They are are a body of elderly men, and the elderly brain is sclerosed and cannot record new impressions. It's not their fault, but the fact remains. You are very silent, Malone." But Malone was thinking of a little, squat, dark figure which waved its hands in joy when he spoke to it. It was with that image in his mind that he turned from this room of wonders and passed down into the street.

To reach him we will pass down the crowded thoroughfare of Tottenham Court Road, where the huge furniture emporia flank the way, and we will turn into a small street of drab houses which leads eastwards towards the British Museum. Tullis Street is the name and 40 the number. Here it is, one of a row, flat-faced, dull-coloured and commonplace, with railed steps leading up to a discoloured door, and one front-room window, in which a huge gilt-edged Bible upon a small round table reassures the timid visitor. With the universal pass-key of imagination we open the dingy door, pass down a dark passage and up a narrow stair. It is nearly ten o'clock in the morning and yet it is in his bedroom that we must seek the famous worker of miracles. The fact us that he has had, as we have seen, an exhausting sitting the night before, and that he has to conserve his strength in the mornings.

At the moment of our inopportune, but invisible, visit he was sitting up, propped by the pillows, with a breakfast-tray upon his knees. The vision he presented would have amused those who have prayed with him in the bumble Spiritualist temples, or had sat with awe at the seances where he had exhibited the modern equivalents of the gifts of the Spirit. He looked unhealthily pallid in the dim morning light, and his curly hair rose up in a tangled pyramid above his broad, intellectual brow. The open collar of his nightshirt displayed a broad, bull's neck, and the depth of his chest and spread of his shoulders showed that he was a man of considerable personal strength. He was eating his breakfast with avidity while he conversed with the little, eager, dark-eyed wife who was seated on the side of the bed.

"And you reckon it a good meeting, Mary?"

"Fair to middling, Tom. There was two of them researchers raking round with their feet and upsetting everybody. D'ye think those folk in the Bible would have got their phenomena if they had chaps of that sort on the premises? 'Of one accord', that's what they say in the book."

"Of course!" cried Linden heartily. "Was the Duchess pleased?"

"Yes, I think she was very pleased. So was Mr. Atkinson, the surgeon. There was a new man there called Malone of the Press. Then Lord and Lady Montnoir got evidence, and so did Sir James Smith and Mr. Mailey."

"I wasn't satisfied with the clairvoyance," said the medium. "The silly idiots kept on putting things into my mind. 'That's surely my Uncle Sam', and so forth. It blurs me so that I can see nothing clear."

"Yes, and they think they are helping! Helping to muddle you and deceive themselves. I know the kind."

"But I went under nicely and I am glad there were some fine materializations. It took it out of me, though. I'm a rag this morning."

"They work you too hard, dear. I'll take you to Margate and build you up."

"Well, maybe at Easter we could do a week. It would be fine. I don't mind readings and clairvoyance, but the physicals do try you. I'm not as bad as Hallows. They say he just lies white and gasping on the floor after them."

"Yes," cried the woman bitterly. "And then they run to him with whisky, and so they teach him to rely on the bottle and you get another case of a drunken medium. I know them. You keep off it, Tom!"

"Yes, one of our trade should stick to soft drinks. If he can stick to vegetables, too, he's all the better, but I can't preach that while I am wolfin' up ham and eggs. By Gosh, Mary! it's past ten and I have a string of them comin' this morning. I'm going to make a bit to-day."

"You give it away as quick as you make it, Tom."

"Well, some hard cases come my way. So long as we can make both ends meet what more do we want? I expect they will look after us all right.""

"They have let down a lot of other poor mediums who did good work in their day."

"It's the rich folk that are to blame not the Spirit-people," said Tom Linden hotly. "It makes me see red when I remember these folk, Lady This and Countess That, declaring all the comfort they have had, and then leaving those who gave it to die in the gutter or rot in the workhouse. Poor old Tweedy and Soames and the rest all living on old-age pensions and the papers talking of the money that mediums make, while some damned conjuror makes more than all of us put together by a rotten imitation with two tons of machinery to help him."

"Don't worry, dear," cried the medium's wife, putting her thin hand caressingly upon the tangled mane of her man. "It all comes level in time and everybody pays the price for what they have done."

Linden laughed loudly. "It's my Welsh half that comes out when I flare up. Let the conjurors take their dirty money and let the rich folk keep their purses shut. I wonder what they think money is for. Paying death duties is about the only fun some of them seem to get out of it. If I had their money . . ."

There was a knock at the door.

"Please, sir, your brother Silas is below." The two looked at each other with some dismay.

"More trouble," said Mrs. Linden sadly.

Linden shrugged his shoulders. "All right, Susan!" he cried. "Tell him I'll be down. Now, dear, you keep him going and I'll be with you in a quarter of an hour."

In less time than he named he was down in the front room--his consulting room--where his wife was evidently having some difficulty in making agreeable conversation with their visitor. He was a big, heavy man, not unlike his elder brother, but with all the genial chubbiness of the medium coarsened into pure brutality. He had the same pile of curly hair, but he was clean-shaven with a heavy, obstinate jowl. He sat by the window with his huge freckled hands upon his knees. A very important part of Mr. Silas Linden lay in those hands, for he had been a professional boxer, and at one time was fancied for the welter-weight honours of England. Now, as his stained tweed suit and frayed boots made clear, he had fallen on evil days, which he endeavoured to mitigate by cadging on his brother.

"Mornin', Tom," he said in a husky voice. Then as the wife left the room: "Got a drop of Scotch about? I've a head on me this morning. I met some of the old set last night down at 'The Admiral Vernon'. Quite a reunion it was--chaps I hadn't seen since my best ring days."

"Sorry, Silas," said the medium, seating himself behind his desk. "I keep nothing in the house."

"Spirits enough, but not the right sort," said Silas.

"Well, the price of a drink will do as well. If you've got a Bradbury about you I could do with it, for there's nothing coming my way."

Torn Linden took a pound note from his desk.

"Here you are, Silas. So long as I have any you have your share. But you had two pounds last week. Is it gone?"

"Gone! I should say so!" He put the note in his pocket. " Now, look here, Tom, I want to speak to you very serious as between man and man."

"Yes, Silas, what is it?"

"You see that!" He pointed to a lump on the back of his hand. " That's a bone! See? It will never be right. It was when I hit Curly Jenkins third round and outed him at the N.S.C. I outed myself for life that night. I can put up a show fight and exhibition bout, but I'm done for the real thing. My right has gone west."

"It's a hard case, Silas."

"Damned hard! But that's neither here nor there. What matters is that I've got to pick up a living and I want to know how to do it. An old scrapper don't find many openings. Chucker-out at a pub with free drinks. Nothing doing there. What I want to know' Tom, is what's the matter with my becoming a medium?"

"A medium?"

"Why the devil should you stare at me! If it's good enough for you it's good enough for me."

"But you are not a medium."

"Oh, come! Keep that for the newspapers. It's all in the family, and between you an' me, how d'ye do it?"

"I don't do it. I do nothing."

"And get four or five quid a week for it. That's a good yarn. Now you can't fool me. Tom, I'm not one o' those duds that pay you a thick 'un for an hour in the dark. We're on the square, you an' me. How d'ye do it?"

"Do what?"

"Well, them raps, for example. I've seen you sit there at your desk, as it might be, and raps come answerin' questions over yonder on the bookshelf. It's damned clever--fair puzzles 'em every time. How d'ye get them?"

"I tell you I don't. It's outside myself."

"Rats! You can tell me, Tom. I'm Griffiths, the safe man. It would set me up for life if I could do it."

For the second time in one morning the medium's Welsh strain took control.

"You're an impudent, blasphemous rascal, Silas Linden. It's men like you who come into our movement and give it a bad name. You should know me better than to think that I am a cheat. Get out of my house, you ungrateful rascal!"

"Not too much of your lip," growled the ruffian.

"Out you go, or I'll put you out, brother or no brother." Silas doubled his great fists and looked ugly for a moment. Then the anticipation of favours to come softened his mood.

"Well, well, no harm meant," he growled, as he made for the door. "I expect I can make a shot at it without your help." His grievance suddenly overcame his prudence as he stood in the doorway. "You damned, canting, hypocritical box-of-tricks. I'll be even with you yet."

The heavy door slammed behind him.

Mrs. Linden had rushed in to her husband.

"The hulking blackguard!" she cried. "I 'eard 'im. What did 'e want?"

"Wanted me to put him wise to mediumship. Thinks it's a trick of some sort that I could teach him."

"The foolish lump! Well, it's a good thing, for he won't dare show his face here again."

"Oh, won't he?"

"If he does I'll slap it for him. To think of his upsettin' you like this. Why, you're shakin' all over!"

"I suppose I wouldn't be a medium if I wasn't high strung. Someone said we were poets, only more so. But it's bad just when work is beginning."

"I'll give you healing."

She put her little work-worn hands over his high forehead and held them there in silence.

"That's better!" said he. "Well done, Mary. I'll have a cigarette in the kitchen. That will finish it."

"No, there's someone here." She had looked out of the window. "Are you fit to see her? It's a woman."

"Yes, yes. I am all right now. Show her in."

An instant later a woman entered, a pale, tragic figure in black, whose appearance told its own tale. Linden motioned her to a chair away from the light. Then he looked through his papers.

"You are Mrs. Blount, are you not? You had an appointment?"

"Yes--I wanted to ask--"

"Please ask me nothing. It confuses me."

He was looking at her with the medium's gaze in his light grey eyes--that gaze which looks round and through a thing rather than at it.

"You have been wise to come, very wise. There is someone beside you who has an urgent message which could not be delayed. I get a name . . . Francis . . . yes, Francis." The woman clasped her hands.

"Yes, yes, it is the name."

"A dark man, very sad, very earnest--oh, so earnest. He will speak. He must speak! It is urgent. He says, 'Tink-a-bell'. Who is Tink-a-bell?"

"Yes, yes, he called me so. Oh, Frank, Frank, speak to me! Speak!"

"He is speaking. His hand is on your head. 'Tink-a-bell', he says, 'If you do what you purpose doing it will make a gap that it will take many years to cross'. Does that mean anything?"

She sprang from her chair. "It means everything. Oh, Mr. Linden, this was my last chance. If this had failed--if I found that I had really lost him I meant to go and seek him. I would have taken poison this night."

"Thank God that I have saved you. It is a terrible thing, madame, to take one's life. It breaks the law of Nature, and Nature's laws cannot be broken without punishment. I rejoice that he has been able to save you. He has more to say to you. His message is, 'If you will live and do your duty I will for ever be by your side, far closer to you than ever I was in life. My presence will surround you and guard both you and our three babes.'"

It was marvellous the change! The pale, worn woman who had entered the room was now standing with flushed cheeks and smiling lips. It is true that tears were pouring down her face' but they were tears of joy. She clapped her hands. She made little convulsive movements as if she would dance.

"He's not dead! He's not dead! How can he be dead if he can speak to me and be closer to me than ever? Oh, it's glorious! Oh, Mr. Linden, what can I do for you? You have saved me from shameful death! You have restored my husband to me! Oh, what a God-like power you have!"

The medium was an emotional man and his own tears were moist upon his cheeks.

"My dear lady, say no more. It is not I. I do nothing. You can thank God Who in His mercy permits some of His mortals to discern a spirit or to carry a message. Well, well, a guinea is my fee, if you can afford it. Come back to me if ever you are in trouble."

"I am content now," she cried, drying her eyes, "to await God's will and to do my duty in the world until such time as it shall be ordained that we unite once more."

The widow left the house walking on air. Tom Linden also felt that the clouds left by his brother's visit had been blown away by this joyful incident, for there is no happiness like giving happiness and seeing the beneficient workings of one's own power. He had hardly settled down in his chair, however, before another client was ushered in. This time it was a smartly-dressed, white-spatted, frock-coated man of the world, with a bustling air as of one to whom minutes are precious.

"Mr. Linden, I believe? I have heard, sir, of your powers. I am told that by handling an object you can often get some clue as to the person who owned it?"

"It happens sometimes. I cannot command it."

"I should like to test you. I have a letter here which I received this morning. Would you try your powers upon that?""

The medium took the folded letter, and, leaning back in his chair, he pressed it upon his forehead. He sat with his eyes closed for a minute or more. Then he returned the paper.

"I don't like it" he said. "I get a feeling of evil. I see a man dressed all in white. He has a dark face. He writes at a bamboo table. I get a sensation of heat. The letter is from the tropics."

"Yes, from Central America."

"I can tell you no more."

"Are the spirits so limited? I thought they knew everything."

"They do not know everything. Their power and knowledge are as closely limited as ours. But this is not a matter for the spirit people. What I did then was psychometry, which, so far as we know, is a power of the human soul."

"Well, you are right as far as you have gone. This man, my correspondent, wants me to put up the money for the half-share in an oil boring. Shall I do it?"

Tom Linden shook his head.

"These powers are given to some of us, sir, for the consolation of humanity and for a proof of immortality. They were never meant for worldly use. Trouble always comes of such use, trouble to the medium and trouble to the client. I will not go into the matter."

"Money's no object," said the man, drawing a wallet from his inner pocket.

"No, sir, nor to me. I am poor, but I have never ill-used my gift."

"A fat lot of use the gift is, then!" said the visitor, rising from his chair. "I can get all the rest from the parsons who are licensed, and you are not. There is your guinea, but I have not had the worth of it."

"I am sorry, sir, but I cannot break a rule. There is a lady beside you--near your left shoulder--an elderly lady . . ."

"Tut! tut!"" said the financier, turning towards the door.

"She wears a large gold locket with an emerald cross upon her breast."

The man stopped, turned and stared.

"Where did you pick that up?"

"I see it before me, now."

"Why, dash it, man, that is what my mother always wore! D'you tell me you can see her?"

"No, she is gone."

"What was she like? What was she doing?"

"She was your mother. She said so. She was weeping."

"Weeping! My mother! Why, she is in heaven if ever a woman was. They don't weep in heaven!"

"Not in the imaginary heaven. They do in the real heaven. It is only we who ever make them weep. She left a message."

"Give it to me!"

"The message was: 'Oh, Jack! Jack! you are drifting ever further from my reach'"

The man made a contemptuous gesture.

"I was a damned fool to let you have my name when I made the appointment. You have been making inquiries. You don't take me in with your tricks. I've had enough of it--more than enough!"

For the second time that morning the door was slammed by an angry visitor.

"He didn't like his message." Linden explained to his wife. "It was his poor mother. She is fretting over him. Lord! If folk only knew these things it would do them more good than all the forms and ceremonies."

"Well, Tom, it's not your fault if they don't," his wife answered. " There are two women waiting to see you. They have not an introduction but they seem in great trouble."

"I've a bit of a headache. I haven't got over last night. Silas and I are the same in that. Our night's work finds us out next morning. I'll just take these and no more, for it is bad to send anyone sorrowin' away if one can help it."

The two women were shown in, both of them austere figures dressed in black, one a stern-looking person of fifty, the other about half that age.

"I believe your fee is a guinea," said the elder, putting that sum upon the table.

"To those who can afford it," Linden answered. As a matter of fact, the guinea often went the other way.

"Oh yes, I can afford it," said the woman. "I am in sad trouble and they told me maybe you could help me."

"Well, I will if I can. That's what I am for."

"I lost my poor husband in the war--killed at Ypres he was. Could I get in touch with him?"

"You don't seem to bring any influence with you. I get no impression. I am sorry but we can't command these things. I get the name Edmund. Was that his name?"

"No."

"Or Albert?"

"No."

"I am sorry, but it seems confused--cross vibrations, perhaps, and a mix-up of messages like crossed telegraph wires."

"Does the name Pedro help you?"

"Pedro! Pedro! No, I get nothing. Was Pedro an elderly man?"

"No, not elderly."

"I can get no impression."

"It was about this girl of mine that I really wanted advice. My husband would have told me what to do. She has got engaged to a young man, a fitter by trade, but there are one or two things against it and I want to know what to do."

"Do give us some advice," said the young woman, looking at the medium with a hard eye.

"I would if I could, my dear. Do you love this man?"

"Oh yes, he's all right."

"Well, if you don't feel more than that about him, I hould leave him alone. Nothing but unhappiness comes of such a marriage."

"Then you see unhappiness waiting for her?"

"I see a good chance of it. I think she should be careful."

"Do you see anyone else coming along?"

"Everyone, man or woman, meets their mate sometime somewhere."

"Then she will get a mate?"

"Most certainly she will."

"I wonder if I should have any family?" asked the girl.

"Nay, that's more than I can say."

"And money--will she have money? We are down hearted, Mr. Linden, and we want a little "

At this moment there came a most surprising interruption. The door flew open and little Mrs. Linden rushed into the room with pale face and blazing eyes.

"They are policewomen, Tom. I've had a warning about them. It's only just come. Get out of this house, you pair of snivelling hypocrites. Oh, what a fool! What a fool I was not to recognize what you were." The two women had risen.

"Yes, you are rather late, Mrs. Linden," said the senior. "The money has passed."

"Take it back! Take it back! It's on the table."

"No, no, the money has passed. We have had our fortune told. You will hear more of this, Mr. Linden."

"You brace of frauds! You talk of frauds when it is you who are the frauds all the time! He would not have seen you if it had not been for compassion."

"It is no use scolding us," the woman answered. "We do our duty and we did not make the law. So long as it is on the Statute Book we have to enforce it. We must report the case at headquarters."

Tom Linden seemed stunned by the blow, but, when the policewomen had disappeared, he put his arm round his weeping wife and consoled her as best he might.

"The typist at the police office sent down the warning," she said. "Oh, Tom, it is the second time!" she cried. "It means gaol and hard labour for you."

"Well, dear, so long as we are conscious of having done no wrong and of having done God's work to the best of our power, we must take what comes with a good heart."

"But where were they? How could they let you down so? Where was your guide?"

"Yes, Victor," said Tom Linden, shaking his head at the air above him, "where were you? I've got a crow to pick with you. You know, dear," he added, "just as a doctor can never treat his own case, a medium is very helpless when things come to his own address. That's the law. And yet I should have known. I was feeling in the dark. I had no inspiration of any sort. It was just a foolish pity and sympathy that led me on when I had no sort of a real message. Well, dear Mary, we will take what's coming to us with a brave heart. Maybe they have not enough to make a case, and maybe the beak is not as ignorant as most of them. We'll hope for the best."

In spite of his brave words the medium was shaking and quivering at the shock. His wife had put her hands upon him and was endeavouring to steady him, when Susan, the maid, who knew nothing of the trouble, admitted a fresh visitor into the room. It was none other than Edward Malone.

"He can't see you," said Mrs. Linden, "the medium is ill. He will see no one this morning."

But Linden had recognized his visitor.

"This is Mr. Malone, my dear, of the Daily Gazette. He was with us last night. We had a good sitting, had we not, sir?"

"Marvellous!" said Malone. "But what is amiss?"

Both husband and wife poured out their sorrows.

"What a dirty business!" cried Malone, with disgust.

"I am sure the public does not realize how this law is enforced, or there would be a row. This agent-provocateur business is quite foreign to British justice. But in any case, Linden, you are a real medium. The law was made to suppress false ones."

"There are no real mediums in British law," said Linden, ruefully. "I expect the more real you are the greater the offence. If you are a medium at all and take money you are liable. But how can a medium live if he does not take money? It's a man's whole work and needs all his strength. You can't be a carpenter all day and a first-class medium in the evening."

"What a wicked law! It seems to be deliberately stifling all physical proofs of spiritual power."

"Yes, that is just what it is. If the Devil passed a law it would be just that. It is supposed to be for the protection of the public and yet no member of the public has ever been known to complain. Every case is a police trap. And yet the police know as well as you or I that every Church charity garden-party has got its clairvoyante or its fortune-teller."

"It does seem monstrous. What will happen now?"

"Well, I expect a summons will come along. Then a police court case. Then fine or imprisonment. It's the second time, you see."

"Well, your friends will give evidence for you and we will have a good man to defend you."

Linden shrugged his shoulders.

"You never know who are your friends. They slip away like water when it comes to the pinch."

"Well, I won't, for one," said Malone, heartily. "Keep me in touch with what is going on. But I called because I had something to ask you."

"I am sorry, but I am really not fit." Linden held out a quivering hand.

"No, no, nothing psychic. I simply wanted to ask you whether the presence of a strong sceptic would stop all your phenomena?"

"Not necessarily. But, of course, it makes everything more difficult. If they will be quiet and reasonable we can get results. But they know nothing, break every law, and ruin their own sittings. There was old Sherbank, the doctor, the other day. When the raps came on the table he jumped up, put his hand on the wall, and cried, 'Now then, put a rap on the palm of my hand within five seconds'. Because he did not get it he declared it was all humbug and stamped out of the room. They will not admit that there are fixed laws in this as in everything else."

"Well, I must confess that the man I am thinking of might be quite as unreasonable. It is the great Professor Challenger."

"Oh, yes, I've heard he is a hard case."

"Would you give him a sitting?"

"Yes, if you desired it."

"He won't come to you or to any place you name. He imagines all sorts of wires and contrivances. You might have to come down to his country house."

"I would not refuse if it might convert him."

"And when?"

"I can do nothing until this horrible affair is over. It will take a month or two."

"Well, I will keep in touch with you till then. When all is well again we shall make our plans and see if we can bring these facts before him, as they have been brought before me. Meanwhile, let me say how much I sympathize. We will form a committee of your friends and all that can will surely be done."
 

To Be Continued...