It was on the morning after his conversation with Jarvis that Boyer, of
the "Clarion," summoned Kenwick into his office. "Got a story here that
I'd like to have you hunt down," he said, and pushed a clipping across
the table. Kenwick read it with an interest that was painfully forced.
It was cut from one of the local evening papers and was a rather
colorless account of the spectacular achievements of one of the city's
trance mediums. He noted down the address and rose with a hint of
weariness.
"The thing that makes her different from the others and worth a trip out
there," his employer explained, "is that Professor Drew of the
psychology department over at the university has set himself the task of
showing her up. She has done some rather dramatic things that have got
on his nerves and the other day he gave a lecture on her methods before
his abnormal psychology class and had the place packed. She has just
written a book too; bizarre sort of thing called the 'Rent Veil' or the
'Torn Scarf' or something like that. It ran in the 'Record' about two
months ago and they made a big hit with it."
He leaned back in his chair and surveyed Kenwick speculatively. "What do
you make of it?" he asked. "This stupendous revival of interest in the
supernatural? Some of our greatest writers devoting themselves to
spirit-writing; some of our best citizens declaring that they get
comfort and inspiration out of the ouija-board and planchette?"
"I think," Kenwick answered slowly, "that it is one of the inevitable
results of the war. It has caused a big upheaval in the spiritual as
well as the economic world. And one of the things that it has brought to
the surface is death. Of course death has always been with us but unless
it came right into our own lives we have persistently ignored it, as we
have ignored the industrial problems and immigration and a lot of other
things. But during the last few years death has been rampant. Everybody
has had to look at it from a greater or less distance. For awhile we'll
have to go on looking at it. And human nature is so constituted that it
has only two alternatives. It must either ignore things or try to
account for them. I don't think this renaissance of the supernatural is
anything unusual. Every great war must have been followed by a frenzied
season of accounting for death."
The other man glanced at him with eyes in which there was no longer
impersonal speculation. "You've been touched by it too, Kenwick?" he
ventured.
"Yes. My brother."
"I'm sorry." He stretched out a hand. "Well, to get back to this Madame
Rosalie; get an interview with her and also with Drew. We'll give 'em
each a column on Sunday. We might be able to start a controversy that
would be worth while."
And so, half an hour later, Kenwick was ringing the door-bell at a
shabby old house on Fillmore Street. As he stood there waiting he was
convinced that his only motive for the errand was a journalistic
interest. But if there is any season of life when the sane well-balanced
man or woman may be tempted into the region of the occult it is during
that interval between the shock of bereavement and readjustment to an
altered order of existence when the soul quivers upon the brink of two
worlds. The lapse of time between shock and readjustment varies with
every temperament, but in that period of helpless groping we all stand
close to the psychic, the unexplainable, the supernatural.
If Kenwick had expected to find Madame Rosalie's domain extraordinary in
any particular, he was distinctly disappointed. It was one of those ugly
old frame houses with protruding bay-windows which still weather
competition with the concrete and stucco residences in every part of the
city. In the front basement window was the hideous sign of a
dry-cleaning establishment, and in the neighboring flat the windows were
placarded with the promise to supply "Costumes for All Occasions."
In response to his summons a petite dark woman in a loose-flowing garnet
robe opened the door and voiced the professional query, "You have an
appointment?"
When the visitor had admitted that his call was impromptu, she
considered for a moment. "I have a client just now," she explained, "and
you may not want to wait until his sitting is over."
"I'll wait," Kenwick assured her. "How long does it take?" It was
instantly apparent from Madame Rosalie's expression that this query was
a violation of professional etiquette. As well inquire of a doctor how
long it will take to perform a major operation.
Ignoring his query the medium opened the door wider and ushered her
caller into the front room. It was a dim commonplace apartment furnished
with flowered cretonne-covered chairs, a defiant-looking piano, and
gilt-framed pictures. "You will find some magazines here," she promised.
"Just make yourself at home, please."
It would be a difficult achievement, the reporter decided, as he settled
himself in one of the rigid-looking chairs. And Madame Rosalie's tone,
though courteous, had not been eager or placating. It was apparent that
she had plenty of business. Her manner of greeting had been more like
that of an experienced and self-possessed hostess taken unawares by a
guest, than of an exponent of the supernatural. She was obviously an
educated woman. Her voice alone betrayed that fact, and she moved with a
grace that seemed somehow incongruous in those sordid surroundings. As
he sat beside the bow-windows, gazing out into the fog, Kenwick smiled
grimly. "I don't know Drew yet," he murmured, "but whoever he is, I'll
bet she can give him a run for his money."
Within twenty minutes he heard low voices at the far end of the hall,
and then the sound of approaching footsteps. He rose and went to the
door. Madame Rosalie and her client were emerging from a shadowy chamber
whose door was draped with maroon-colored portières. The caller had
reached the hat-rack and was jerking himself into his overcoat when all
at once he stopped with words of astonished greeting. "Why, hello,
Kenwick!" He strode forward with extended hand. And Kenwick gripped it
with an equal astonishment. It was one of the men whom he had known well
at college. "Going it strong now that you are back in civilization
again?" On his face was genuine pleasure and the shamefaced expression
that it would have worn if the newspaper reporter had suddenly
encountered him tobogganing down one of San Francisco's hills on a
child's coaster.
When he was gone the reporter followed his hostess into the room with
the maroon-colored curtains. It was as shabby as the waiting-room but
more comfortable and somehow expressive of a strong personality. Over a
felt-covered table, strewn with cards and stubs of pencils and other
aids to occult communication, was an electric bulb held in place by a
loop of white cotton string. Madame Rosalie motioned him to a seat
beside this table and sank into a deep chair on the opposite side.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Madame Rosalie's eyes rested upon
her client with a scrutiny that was not inquisitive but almost
uncomfortably searching. They were dark eyes and brilliant with the
unnatural shining that is often caused by chronic insomnia. At first
glance he had thought that her hair was confined under a net; now at
close range he saw that it was cut short and waved alluringly over the
lobes of her ears. She had been a beautiful woman once, he reflected,
but life had given her brutal treatment.
He picked up a crystal sphere that was lying upon the table. "Tell me
what you see for me in that?" he commanded.
She turned it slowly under the light. Kenwick watching her, felt a
little cheated by the unspectacular quality of her technic. For all the
thrill which she seemed likely to give him, he might as well be opening
an interview with the census-taker.
"You came," the medium said at last, still gazing into the depths of the
crystal, "to consult me, not about the future but the past."
He made no response.
"You are in trouble," she went on in the same unhurried voice. "You are
in great trouble--but you are not taking the right way out."
"What is the right way out?"
"You must have help."
An expression of annoyance crossed his face. She would follow up that
statement, of course, with the suggestion that he enlist for a prolonged
course of "readings." He was preparing a curt dismissal of this plan
when suddenly she set the crystal down upon the table and looked at him
with compassionate eyes. "You must have help," she repeated. "But it
must be the help of some one who is dear to you--or _was_ dear to you."
"Can you evoke such a spirit?"
"I don't know. I never can promise, but I'll try."
She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. The man, looking at
her from across the table, was startled at the change in her face. For
hers was that type of face which is dominated by the eyes. Without their
too brilliant light it suffered a complete loss of personality. Words
came at last through her slightly parted lips. "There is some one who
wishes to speak to you. I think it is a woman."
"A woman!" Kenwick was not conscious that his tone held a note of
disappointment. "Who is she?"
"I can't quite get the name. It's a difficult control. But she wants
very much to talk to you. She says----It will be hard to forgive at
first, but you must come back."
"Back where?"
The voice went on, unheeding. "She says----that she was influenced by
some one else--some one stronger. You must look for that man. You must
never stop looking for him----in crowds and everywhere you go you must
look. And when you see his face you will know at once that he is the
one, the only one who can help you. He is your missing link."
There was a long pause. "Anything else?" Kenwick inquired at last. His
voice was guarded but he was strangely moved.
"There is some one calling to you. He seems to be in a prison and he is
looking out through iron bars. They might be the bars of a gate. I can't
see the face, but some one is calling your name."
"Shall I answer the call?"
"No. There would be no use. It is too late now."
Her eyes opened suddenly and met Kenwick's fixed upon them intent but
inscrutable. He stretched his hand across the table.
"Read my palm."
She held it only a moment but her eyes seemed to take in its every line
at a glance. "There is a perpetual conflict raging in your soul," she
said.
He smiled. "That's true of most people, isn't it?"
Madame Rosalie had a superb disregard for irrelevancies. "Part of you is
eager to plunge gallantly into the tasks of the present, but the other
part is holding you back. You have the drooping head-line with the
introspective fingers. It's a bad sign on the hand of the creative
temperament. And you are some kind of a creative artist; painter,
musician, or writer. But your head-line didn't always droop. It's a
recent tendency, so you have a good chance to overcome it."
"How can I overcome it?"
"In the first place, give up all idea of trying to reconcile yourself
with the past. You can't possibly do it and the effort may--wreck you."
He got to his feet and stood looking down at her. "There doesn't seem to
be much ahead for me, does there?" he said.
"There is everything ahead; all the tragedy is behind you." She was
still looking at him compassionately. "You are too young," she said at
last.
"Too young for what?"
"To have lost so much out of your life." Her voice was like red coals
leaping into sudden flame. It startled Kenwick. "And you are choosing
just the wrong way to wrestle with such a loss. You had originally a
splendid initiative, an impatient desire for action. But the artistic
side of your nature has assumed control of you. And the artistic
temperament is long on endurance and short on combativeness. If you
spent one-third of the time fighting this specter in your past that you
spend trying to reconcile yourself to it, you would win gloriously."
For a few moments they stood beside the table talking of commonplaces.
Once Kenwick mentioned Professor Drew, and Madame Rosalie smiled.
"I'm not afraid of him," she said. "And neither do I care to enter into
a public debate with him."
She followed her client to the door. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to help
you more. But you are not ready for my help yet."
Kenwick walked back to the "Clarion" office with these words ringing in
his ears. The messages from the other world may have been guess-work,
but at least she was a shrewd reader of character. And contrary to all
his expectations she had not made any effort to win him for a permanent
client.
His Sunday story, featuring her and Professor Drew, was all that Boyer
had hoped for it. The astrologist was sketched with a few vivid strokes,
the room with the maroon-colored curtains more in detail, and an
interview reported which thrilled the souls of the credulous and held
even the attention of the skeptical. There was neither ridicule nor
championship in the story, and the caustic comments of Professor Drew
were bare of journalistic comment. Altogether, the thing worked up well
and made a hit. After reading it during his late breakfast at the St.
Germaine, Kenwick suddenly decided to go around to the Hartshire
Building and keep his promise to Jarvis. He found the photographer
enveloped in a long black apron and rubber gloves. "Good boy!" he cried
slapping his visitor on the back. "I've been thinking about you and that
cursed story you told me: can't get the blame thing out of my head. That
was good stuff about the clairvoyant in the 'Clarion' this morning.
Where on earth do you dig up those oddities? I recognized your
pen-name."
He hung Kenwick's coat in a shallow closet as he talked. "You are in the
nick of time to help me with an experiment if you will," he went on. "I
want to do some research work on the human eye and I've got to have a
subject. I've got a lot of cards here--featuring optical illusions and
that sort of thing. Do you mind helping me for, say, half an hour? You
see, the human eye and brain are the ideal apparatus for perfecting the
camera and I'm working on an invention."
Kenwick complied with alacrity, glad of the opportunity to get his mind
off of himself. For almost an hour Jarvis worked under the black hood of
the tripod while Kenwick reported on the images printed upon the cards.
When the tests were finished and he rose to go, the photographer pushed
aside his paraphernalia and wiped his forehead. "Hot as Hades under that
thing!" he cried. "Say, I was wondering the other day if you play golf."
"I used to go out and play with my brother at his club," Kenwick
replied. "But it's been some time ago; I'd be a duffer at it now."
"Well, I've got a card that will let us into the club over in
Claremont," Jarvis explained. "If you haven't got anything better to do,
what do you say that we meet at the ferry building about two o'clock
this afternoon and play a few holes over on the course? It's a great day
to be outside. Can you make it?"
"Yes, I think so." For a moment Kenwick stood looking at his host with
an expression that puzzled Jarvis. Then abruptly he turned and went
away. Up the steep California street hills he strode, scarcely conscious
of the effort it cost. For a horrible dread was tearing at his heart. It
was not a new sensation to him, and its very familiarity made it the
more hideous; that persistent dread known only to those who are
struggling back over the hard road of mental prostration. The seed of it
had sprouted on the morning when he had bought that fatal newspaper at
the Third and Townsend Depot. And during the weeks that followed its
tendrils had wrapped a strangle-hold about his life. Sometimes it almost
stopped his breathing. And as yet he had never seen the thing that he
dreaded. It was not yet upon any one's face. But he assured himself
desperately that some day he would see it. Some day, when perhaps he
wasn't thinking about it at all, it would suddenly leap out at him. In
the eyes of some man or woman, or perhaps even some little child, he
would see suspicion or fear or morbid curiosity. Without being told,
they would know suddenly that here was a man who had once lost his
mental grip. They would be afraid that he might suddenly lose it again,
and that shuddering fear would send him reeling backward into the land
of shadows and specters.
He stumbled on blindly, and through the blackness of his anguish there
came to him again the curious sensation that he had experienced on his
second night at Mont-Mer; the sensation of having lost some material
prop that could restore his courage.
The genial suggestion of Jarvis that they play golf together over in
Claremont was like a cool hand laid upon his forehead. To Jarvis he must
seem sane and normal, capable at least of acquitting himself creditably
in the sport of sane and normal men. He ate a hasty and solitary lunch
and at two o'clock met the photographer in front of the flower-booth in
the ferry building for an afternoon at the country club.