"Very numb, but I'll be all right in a very short time. My wrists hurt;
your thread is very tight. My arms always swell. Please give me a drink
of water."
As I held the glass to her lips I was conscience-smitten to think that
for five hours she had been sitting in this constrained position--a
martyr to science; but I deferred the moment of her release till Miller
had examined every bond. I used a small pair of scissors to cut the
thread out of the deep furrows in her wrist, and it took a quarter of an
hour of chafing to restore her arms to their normal condition, all of
which had a convincing effect upon the doubters.
Miss Brush was indignant. "I think it is a shame the way you have
treated your psychic."
"Oh, this is nothing," responded Mrs. Smiley. "I'd be unhappy and uneasy
if you didn't tie me. I'm like the old man's chickens (you've heard the
story?): he had moved so much that the chickens, whenever they saw him
put a cover on his wagon, would lie down and cross their feet to be
tied."
After Mrs. Cameron had taken Mrs. Smiley to the dining-room for a cup of
tea, the rest of us remained staring at one another.
"Now, which of us did that?" I asked.
"So far as the psychic was concerned, I don't see how she could have had
any hand in it," said Miller. "But, then, it was all in the dark."
I had to admit that this diminished the value of the experiment. "But
now listen," I said: "as we all seem to be suspicious of one another, I
propose that we resort to a process of elimination. I shall take
'Mitchell's' advice and narrow the circle. Howard, you are a suspect.
You are ruled out of the next sitting."
"Oh no," protested Howard. "That isn't fair. I did nothing, I swear!"
"You admit being a prestidigitator?"
"Yes, but I had nothing to do with this performance."
"Nevertheless, so far as conclusive proof is concerned, your presence in
the circle invalidates it. Now I propose that Mrs. Smiley go to Miller's
house, with no one present but Mr. and Mrs. Cameron and Mr. and Mrs.
Miller. If we secure these same phenomena under Miller's conditions, we
will then readmit one by one the entire membership of the society."
Mrs. Quigg resented being left out, and I pretended surprise.
"I thought from what you had said that these 'dark shows' were of no
value?"
"The next one ought to have decided value if Professor Miller has any
share in the test," she answered, quickly. "I believe in him."
"And not in me? That's a nice thing to say."
"I mean in his method. He is a cold, calm, merciless scientist. You're a
man of imagination."
"Thank you," said I. "My critics would take issue with you there.
However, if we get anywhere in this campaign we must begin with the
smallest possible circle and slowly enlarge it. We hope also to increase
the amount of light."
After some further argument, Cameron settled the matter by saying:
"Garland is right; and, to show my own scientific temper, I rule Mrs.
Cameron and myself out of the next sitting. That will put the whole
problem up to Miller and Garland."
Miller and I walked away to the club together, pondering deeply on the
implications of the night's performance.
"I don't see how it was done," Miller repeated. "Certainly she did not
rise from her chair, not for an instant, and yet to believe that she did
not have a hand in what took place is to admit the impossible. You have
had other sittings with her, haven't you? You believe in her?"
"Yes, I think she is sincere, but possibly self-deceived. The fact that
she is willing to put herself into our hands in this way is most
convincing."
"There is nothing of the trickster about her appearance, and yet I wish
she had permitted us to hold her hands to-night."
"Miller," said I, earnestly, "if you'll go with me into this
experimentation with an open mind, I'll convince you that Crookes and
Flammarion are the true scientists. It is the fashion to smile at
Flammarion as a romantic astronomer, but I can't see _now_ that he is
lacking in patience and caution. For all his rather fervid utterances,
he keeps his head and goes on patiently investigating. He has had more
experience than even Crookes or Lombroso. For forty years he has been
searching the dark for these strange forces, and yet he says: 'We create
in these seances an imaginary being; we speak to it, and in its replies
it almost always reflects the mentality of the experimenter. Spirits
have taught us nothing. They have not led science forward a single
step.... I must say that if there are spirits, or beings independent of
us, in action, they know no more than we do about the other world's.'
And yet as regards the physical facts of mediumship, he sustains all the
investigators. 'These phenomena exist,' he says."
"Candidly, Garland, what is your own belief?" asked Miller, a few
moment's later.
I evaded him. "I have seen enough to make me believe in Zoellner's
fourth dimension, but I don't. My mind is so constructed that such
wonders as we have seen to-night produce very little effect on me. They
are as normal to me now as the popping of corn or the roasting of
potatoes. As I say, I have demonstrated certain of these physical
doings. But as for belief--well, that is not a matter of the will, but
of evidence, and the evidence is not yet sufficient to bring me to any
definite conclusion; in fact, in the broad day, and especially the
second day after I have been through one of these astounding
experiences, I begin to doubt my senses. Richet speaks of this curious
recession of belief, and admits his own inability to retain the
conviction that, at the moment of the phenomenon, was complete. 'No
sooner is the sitting over than my doubts come swarming back upon me,'
he says. 'The real world which surrounds us, with its prejudices, its
schemes of habitual opinions, holds us in so strong a grasp that we can
scarcely free ourselves completely. Certainty does not follow on
demonstration, but on habit.' And in that saying you have my own mental
limitations admirably put."
Miller plodded along by my side in silence for a few minutes, and then
asked, abruptly: "What is the real reason that you keep up the fiction
of the 'guide' when you don't believe in him?"
"For the reason that I think Mrs. Smiley honest in her faith, and that
to be polite to the 'guides' is one of the first requisites of a
successful sitting. Suppose the whole action to be terrestrial. Suppose
each successful sitting to be, as Flammarion suggests, nothing but a
subtle adjustment of our 'collective consciousness' to hers. Can't you
see how necessary it is that we should proceed with her full consent?
After an immense experience, following closely Crookes, de Rochas,
Lodge, Richet, Duclaux, Lombroso, and Ochorowicz, Maxwell says: 'I
believe in these phenomena, but I see no need to attribute them to any
supernatural intervention. I am inclined to think they are produced by
some force within ourselves--'"
"Just what does he mean by that?"
"I can't precisely explain. It's harder to understand than the spirit
hypothesis. He himself admits this, and goes on to say that while he is
certain that we are in the presence of an unknown force, he is convinced
that the phenomena will ultimately be found orderly, like all other
facts of nature. 'Therefore, in the critical state of research, the
scientific problem, it seems to me, is not whether spiritism be true or
false, but whether metapsychical phenomena are real or imaginary. Some
future Newton will discover a more complete formula than ours,' he
prophesies. 'Every natural fact should be studied, and if it be real,
incorporated in the patrimony of knowledge.' He then adds, with the
true scientist's humble acknowledgment of the infinite reach of the
undiscovered universe: 'Our knowledge is very limited and our experience
young.'"
"That is good talk," said Miller in reply, "but the question is, Does he
really experiment in that condition of mind? An astronomer with his eye
to a telescope is a highly specialized and competent being. An
astronomer listening to whispers in the dark may be as simple and
credulous as a child."
"I grant all that. But I see in it the greater reason why men like
yourself should take up the investigation of these illusive and
disturbing problems. These phenomena, as Flammarion says, introduce us
into uncharted seas, and we need the most cautious and clearest-sighted
scientists in this world as pilots. Will you be one of them?"
"You flatter me. As a matter of fact, I'm a very poor sailor," he
answered, with a smile.