Part 41

"But mediums are all alike in this respect. I don't suppose Mrs. Smiley realizes that 'Maudie' would be called by a doubter a falsetto disguise of her own voice, and 'Wilbur' a shrewd and humorous personification of her subconscious self; or, if she does, she probably ascribes it to the process of materialization which 'takes from' the medium. Never but once have I had the sensation of being in the presence of a real spirit personality, and that happened to me only a few days ago."

"It must have been an extraordinary experience to have made so deep an impression upon you," said Fowler.

"Yes, it was extraordinary. It had the personal element in it to a much greater degree than any case I had hitherto studied, and seemed a direct attempt at identification on the part of a powerful and original individuality but recently 'passed out.' It came about in this way:

"I met, not long ago, at the home of a friend in a Western city, a woman who was said to be able to produce whispers independent of her own organs of speech. I was assured by those in whom I had confidence that these voices could be heard in the broad light of day, in the open air, anywhere the psychic happened to be, and that her 'work' was of an exceptionally high character. I was keenly interested, as you may imagine, and asked for a sitting. Mrs. Hartley, as we will call her, fixed a day and hour in her own house for the trial, and I went to the sitting a few days later with high expectations of her 'phase.' I found her living in a small frame house on a pleasant street, with nothing to indicate that it was a meeting-place of mortals and their 'spirit guides.'

"Mrs. Hartley was quite evidently a woman of power and native intelligence. After a few minutes of general conversation she took me up to her study on the second floor, a sunny little den on the east side of the house, which was not in the least suggestive of hocus-pocus. A broad mission table, two bookcases, a few flowers, and a curious battered old black walnut table completed the furnishing of the room, which indicated something rather studious and thoughtful in the owner.

"Mrs. Hartley asked me to be seated, and added, 'Please write on a sheet of paper the names of such friends as you would like to communicate with.' She then left the room on some household errand, and while she was gone I wrote the name of her guide, 'Dr. Cooke' (out of compliment), and added that of a musical friend whom I will call 'Ernest Alexander.' I also wrote the names 'Jessie' and 'David,' folded the sheet once, and retained it under my hand. Upon her return the psychic seated herself at the battered oval table, and, taking up a pair of hinged school slates, began to clean them with a cloth. I am not going to detail my precautions. You must take my detective work for granted. Moreover, in this case I was awaiting the voices; the slate-writing was gratuitous. She took the slates (between which I had dropped my slip of paper), and, putting them beneath the table, asked me to hold one corner."

"I wish they wouldn't do that," protested Fowler. "It isn't necessary. I've had messages on slates held in my own hands six feet from the psychic."

"As we sat thus she told me that she had never been in a trance, and that she never permitted the dark. 'I force my guides to work in the light,' she said. She declared that the whispers which I was presently to hear came to her under all conditions, and that her spirit friends talked to her familiarly as she went about her household duties. She assured me that 'they' were a great help and comfort to her. 'Dr. Cooke' was her ever-present guide and counsellor, and her father and brother were always near.

"It was plain that she did not stand in awe of them, for after half an hour's wait she grew impatient and called out in an imperious tone: 'Come, dear, I want you. Come, anybody.' Two or three times she spoke loudly, clearly, as if calling to some one through a thick wall. This interested me exceedingly. Generally psychics are very humble and patient with their 'guides.' A few moments later the slates began to slam about so violently beneath the table that her arm was bruised, and she protested sharply: 'Don't do that. You will break the slates and the table both!' Thereupon the 'forces' quieted down till only a peculiar quiver remained in them. I could hear writing going on steadily.

"At last a tap came to announce that the messages were written. The psychic withdrew the slates and handed them across the table to me. I opened them and took out my paper. On one slate was a message from 'Dr. Cooke,' the guide; on the other were these words, written in slate-pencil: 'I would that you could see me as I am now, still occupied, and happy to be busy.' This was followed by four lines and three little marks, evidently intended to symbolize a bar of music, and the whole was signed, 'E. Alexander.' The writing was firm and manly, but I did not recognize it as that of my friend.

"The second trial resulted in this vague communication: 'My dear friend, don't overdo. Earth is but one life. Many I recall. I tried to give expression to my one talent.' This was signed 'Ernest Alexander.' Both these replies, as you see, were very general in phraseology, but the third message came closer to the individual: 'I was so tired and not myself. I am well and in the world of progress. Ernest Alexander.' The bar of music again appeared, this time much more 'developed.'"

Miller stopped me here. "All this is quite simple. Mrs. Hartley opened and read your note and, following up the clew, simply did some neat trick-writing beneath the table."

"It is not so simple as all that," I answered. "She was interrupted about this time by the doorbell, and while she was gone I wrote on another piece of paper: 'Ernest, give me a test of your identity. Write a bar from the "---- Sonata."' This note I folded close and put in an inside pocket.

"In answer to this request, when the medium returned I got these pertinent words: 'I was not a disappointment to myself, but I was at a point where nerve force failed me.' This was signed 'Ernest,' and was accompanied by another sketchy bar of music. It all looked like a real attempt to give me what I had asked for, and yet it was the kind of reply that might have been made by the medium had she known the history of my musical friend, or had she been able to take it out of my mind."

"Even that is a violent assumption to me," remarked Miller.

"So it is to me," I answered. "I can't really believe in thought transmission, and yet-- I then asked for the signature of the staff, and a small 'c' was written in the bar above, and another bar was added. Now on the slates there came (with every evidence of eager haste) intimate questions concerning Alexander's family: 'Is my wife cared for?' and the like. To these I replied orally. I must tell you that all along the whisper spoke of Alexander's wife as 'Mary,' which was wrong, although it was close to the actual name. Also, after I began to speak of him as 'E. A.' the messages were all signed in that manner, all of which would seem to argue a little confusion in the psychic's mind.

"A little later, while I held the slate myself, the mysterious 'force' wrote, 'I thank you for what you have done. I have been told my mind is clear,' which was particularly full of meaning to me, for the reason that my friend's mind was clouded toward the close of his life."

"All of which proves nothing," insisted Miller. "Your friend, if I conjecture rightly, was a well-known man, and the psychic could have read, and probably did read, all about his illness in the public press."

"It may be so. About this time I began to hear a faint whisper, which seemed to come from a point a little to the right of and a foot or two above the psychic's lips. This, she informed me, was the voice of 'Dr. Cooke,' her guide. I could catch only a few of the whispered words, and Mrs. Hartley was forced to repeat them. 'Dr. Cooke,' thus interpreted, said: 'Your friend Alexander is present, and overjoyed to talk with you.' The conversation went on with both 'Dr. Cooke' and the psychic standing between the alleged spirit and myself; but even then I must admit that 'Alexander's' queries and answers were to the point.

"Under what seemed like test conditions I got two more bars of music, both much more definitive in form than the others; and these, the whisper declared, were from the third movement of the '---- Sonata.' This message was accompanied by a curious little device like the letter C with a line drawn through it, and I said to myself: 'If this should prove to be a mark which "Ernest" used in signing his manuscript, something like Whistler's butterfly, I shall have a fine test of thought transmission.'

"I now secured under excellent tests the writing of a singular word, which was plainly spelled but meant nothing to me. It looked like 'Isinghere.' In answer to oral questioning, the whisper said that these bars of music were part of an unpublished manuscript, a fragment, which the composer had meant to call 'Isinghere.'"

"What about the process?" asked Miller. "Did the writing appear to be supernormal?"

"Yes, and so did the whispering. I could detect no connection between the lips of the psychic and the voice. In one way or another I varied the conditions, so that I was at last quite convinced of the psychic's supernormal power; but that was not my quest. I was seeking proof of the identity of my friend 'E. A.'

"Seeing that the chief means of identification might be in the music, I persuaded my friend Blake, who is a fairly competent musician, to sit with me and decipher the score which 'E. A.' persisted in setting down. I was now eager to secure a complete phrase of the music. I saw myself establishing, at the least, the most beautiful case of mind-tapping on record. 'If we can secure the score of an unpublished manuscript of Alexander's composition we shall have worked a miracle,' I said to Blake.

"Our first sitting, which took place in the home of a common friend, was mixed as to results; but the second, which we held in Mrs. Hartley's study one bright morning, was very fruitful. The 'powers' started in at once as if to confound us both. Blake received a message written on a slate under his foot, and I got the name 'Jessie,' with the word 'sister' written beneath it; and then suddenly the whispers changed in character. The words became swift, impetuous, imperious. 'Line off all the leaves of a slate,' the voice commanded. I understood at once, for in the previous sitting 'E. A.' had seemingly found it difficult to draw a long line.

"We had brought some silicon slates of the book variety, and Blake now proceeded to rule one of them with the lines of a musical staff, and on these slates, held as before beneath the table, we began to get bars of music of a character quite outside the knowledge of the psychic and myself; and, more remarkable still, the whispers, so the psychic informed us, were no longer from 'Dr. Cooke'; 'E. A.,' she declared, was there in person and directing the work.

"Furthermore, the requests that we now received were entirely different in character from 'Cooke's' impersonal remarks. The whispers were quick and masterful, wonderfully like 'Alexander' in content. 'He' was humorous; 'he' acknowledged mistakes in the score, calling them 'slips of the pen.' 'He' became highly technical in his conversation with Blake, talking of musical matters that were Greek to me and, I venture to say, Coptic to the psychic. 'He' corrected the notations himself, sometimes when Blake held the slate, sometimes when I held it. Part of the time 'he' indicated the corrections orally. 'He' asked Blake to try the air.

"At last 'he' broke off, and imperiously said: 'Take the table to the piano.' This seemed to surprise the psychic, but she acquiesced, and we moved the small stand and our slates down to the little parlor; and there, with Blake now holding the slate beneath the table and now playing the notes upon the piano, the score grew into a weird little melody with bass accompaniment, which seemed to me at the moment exactly like a message from my friend Alexander. The first bar went through me like the sound of his voice."