1
Mr. Messenger and the Sergeant were in the drawing-room talking to Lady
Ulrica and Vernon, when Harrison, at the head of the little party,
entered by the French window.
Mr. Messenger’s story was soon told. His daughter had left the hotel
presumably between nine and ten o’clock, and had not been seen since.
He explained that he was peculiarly anxious because she had been in
very low spirits recently. For one thing, a friend of hers, a Mrs.
Burton who lived a few miles away, had committed suicide about three
weeks before. Also, and here Mr. Messenger looked rather pointedly in
the direction of Robert Fell; also, he believed that she had--he paused
with obvious intention before he concluded--“she had--another trouble
on her mind.”
Harrison had listened with a preoccupied air that was unusual to him.
But as the hotel-keeper finished his story, he warmed again to his
usual alertness.
“I must tell you, Messenger,” he said, “that we have only this moment
come up from the lake, all of us. And we saw no sign of your daughter
there, but we did meet another young woman, a perfect stranger to all
of us, who behaved in--er--in a rather odd manner. Might I ask you if
you have anyone staying with you who at all answers that description?”
“We’ve no one staying in the house at all this week-end, sir,”
Messenger replied.
“And do you know of anyone, any stranger staying in the village?”
“There’s no one, sir, to my knowledge,” Messenger said, and went on
quickly: “But have I your permission now, sir, for me and Mr. Stevens
to go down to the plantation, and--and the lake?” He paused before he
added in a lower tone, “Though I’m afraid we’ll be too late. She’s been
gone, now, for more than three hours.”
“But we’ve just come back from the plantation, all of us,” Harrison
protested. “If she’d been there, surely we should have seen her?”
“Not if she’d ... if she’d been....” Messenger began, and stopped
abruptly, putting his hand to his throat as if his words had choked him.
Stevens, the police-sergeant, shifted his feet uneasily and looked
half-appealingly at Mrs. Harrison. “Mr. Messenger is afraid as Miss
Phyllis may ’ave--may ’ave done what her friend Mrs. Burton did,” he
explained.
Mrs. Harrison got to her feet with a sudden effect of tense emotion,
but before she could speak her husband cut in quickly by saying, “We’d
better have the electric torches, Emma. Will you get them? G. and I
will go, too. Will you come, Vernon?”
“Certainly,” Vernon said. There was a light in his eyes that was hardly
indicative of horror or even of pity.
Harrison turned away from him with a movement of disgust. “And Fell?
Where’s Fell?” he asked.
But Fell had already left the room.
“He went out by the window, a couple of minutes back, sir,” the
Sergeant said.
Charles Harrison was at all times an impatient man, and there were
occasions, as in the present case, when his nervous irritability
completely overcame him. He was seriously distressed by the thought
that Phyllis Messenger had in all probability committed suicide. That
touched him on his human, generous side. But the thing that had finally
upset him had been the look on Vernon’s face; rapt, faintly mystical,
the look of one who believed that a very miracle had been performed for
his benefit. Harrison could not endure to remain in his presence for
another moment.
“I’ll--I’ll go on and see what’s become of Fell,” he mumbled as he
fairly scuttled out of the room.
Once outside, he began to run. He wanted to think, but his mind was
full of exasperation--with Vernon for his look of triumph, with the
unfortunate Phyllis Messenger, with the vacillating Robert Fell as the
immediate cause of the whole disaster. It seemed to Charles Harrison as
if a fortuitous coincidence of events were conspiring against him to
produce the illusion of a spiritualistic phenomenon. He did not believe
for one moment that the stranger he had seen by the plantation was the
spirit of the drowned Phyllis Messenger, but he foresaw the kind of
case that Vernon would make out, and the effect it would have upon all
the other members of the party. He could not even be sure that his own
wife might not be influenced. When that confounded Stevens had hinted
at the probability of this girl’s suicide, a very queer expression
had come into Emma’s face, just as if she had suddenly realised some
strange, significant connection between the possibility of the girl’s
death and that other experience earlier in the evening. He had cut
hurriedly into the conversation for fear that she might say something
foolish....
No, no, the girl could not, must not be dead. They would find her
somewhere. And yet, so great was Harrison’s foreboding that he never
paused a moment by the yews, but hurried straight on to the shore of
the lake. He had seen nothing of Fell. He had indeed forgotten all
about him.
The night was still clear, but it was no longer frozen into that
rigid immobility which had earlier produced so strange an effect of
expectancy. There was a perceptible movement of air from the west, the
familiar voices of the poplars maintained a perpetual background of
sound, and when he had come through the plantation to the edge of the
lake, he could hear the minute clashing of the reeds as the chasing
ripple of the water set them gently swaying. The air of mystery had
fled. He no longer felt the least influence of fear. The dread that
he might presently see something that heavily floated, rocking and
pressing against the rushes, was more the dread of annoyance.
But there was no one in sight. Nothing moved on all the long curving
reaches of the bank. There was no sound in the night other than the
faint crash of the reeds, the soft chuckle of the water and the steady
insistence of the sibilant poplars.
And search as he would up and down the brooding sweep of the dark
water, damascened here and there by the yellow silver of moonlight
reflected from the crest of the increasing ripple, he could see no
slender raft of floating drapery, nor any sign of a sodden form, nearly
immersed, sagging inertly towards the bank.
He desisted presently, and sat down to consider the whole situation.
The sense of exasperation had faded under the influence of the night’s
peace, and he fell into a calmer consideration of the problem that
was vexing him. He saw that he must take the initiative, state his
case before Vernon could get a word in. He would treat the affair as
an instance of the kind of thing that gets worked up into what these
people absurdly called “evidence.” The coincidence of this stranger,
(whoever she was,) turning up on the very evening on which that unhappy
girl had drowned herself--if she had sunk, they would have an awful job
to recover the body; the lake was over forty feet deep in places--was
just another of those coincidences that had probably been responsible
for most of the superstitions about the appearance of the spirit at
the moment of death. And in this case it was obviously absurd to
argue that it was the spirit of Phyllis Messenger they had seen. _And
heard!_ That was a good point. Finally and conclusively, there was the
tulle scarf; real and solid enough. No one had ever heard of a spirit
leaving such material evidence behind it. What had he done with that
scarf, by the way? He had had it in his hand when he had entered the
drawing-room. He’d probably laid it down there, somewhere. He must make
enquiries about that as soon as he got in. It might help him to trace
the identity of the stranger.
He had wandered a quarter of a mile or so away from the path through
the plantation, and he jumped up now, with the intention of getting
back at once to the house, in order to make sure of that valuable piece
of evidence. But as he came out of his preoccupation, his attention was
arrested by the distant murmur of little detached sounds, the separated
notes of human voices, musical in their remoteness, faintly impinging
upon the textured whisperings of the night.
They are still looking for that poor girl, he thought with a twinge
of remorse for his own loss of interest in the search. But even as he
started to join them, he realised that the sounds were retreating,
fading imperceptibly into the depths of the night. Have they found her,
I wonder, he murmured to himself, thinking still of a desecrated and
draggled body; and then he heard himself being distantly hailed in the
strong, cheerful voice of his friend Greatorex.
“Ahoy there, Harrison; Harrison, ahoy!” he was shouting.
It was not in the least the voice one would expect from a man who had
so recently stood in the presence of the dead.
“Ahoy! Hallo! Where are you?” Harrison shouted in return.
The next minute he saw the tall, athletic figure of Greatorex coming
towards him along the bank of the lake.
“Been looking for you everywhere,” Greatorex said as he came within
speaking distance. “We’ve found the lady.”
“Alive?” gasped Harrison.
“Rather. Not exactly hearty, perhaps, but she’s all right. Well enough,
in any case, to walk back to the house in the company of her father and
Fell.” He dropped his voice confidentially as he added: “Seems that
it’s a case with Fell. What? We found ’em together, you know, in a cosy
little place among the yews, not five yards from the spot where the
mysterious lady came out. Perfect little tunnel up to it, too. If we’d
happened on it at first, we’d have found the girl there and saved all
the trouble. Fell knew all about the place, it seems. Went straight to
it and found Miss Messenger in a faint, or just recovering from it.”
“How long had she been there?” Harrison asked sharply.
“All the time, presumably,” Greatorex said.
“Come there to meet Fell, eh?”
“Seems probable. And we spoilt his little game by coming too, I
suppose. However, he’s owned up now. Made a clean breast of it, and
declared his intention of marrying her; in the presence of five
witnesses. Quite a dramatic little scene there was. Old Messenger was
almost overcome.”
Harrison did not seem to have been attending to this speech, for his
next question was:
“You didn’t find anything else there, did you? No apparatus of any
kind, such as a mask or attempts at a disguise?”
“Lord, no. I didn’t see anything, and I was the first to get to them,”
Greatorex replied. “But why? You don’t think....”
“That she may have been prepared? I do,” Harrison said emphatically.
“She’d made an assignation and come ready to pass herself off as
someone else if she were caught--which she very nearly was. Showed
herself in the first instance in order to attract Fell’s attention, and
unfortunately for her brought the whole party out.”
“Oh! no, no, Harrison. No, I don’t think so,” Greatorex said. “You’ve
got that blessed apparition or whatever it was on your nerves. But,
honestly, that explanation won’t do. Why, the girl was half-unconscious
when I found ’em.”
“Put on,” Harrison interpolated.
“Impossible,” Greatorex replied. “When we got her out into the open,
she was still as white as a sheet.”
“Effect of moonlight,” commented Harrison.
“No.” Greatorex’s tone had a quality of great assurance. “No, she was
recovering from a faint all right. There can be no question of that.
Besides, what could be the point of all that make-believe after she was
found?”
“Well, she may have fainted after she’d fooled us,” Harrison suggested.
“Overwrought, you know.”
They had been making their way steadily back to the house as they
talked, but Greatorex stopped now in the middle of the meadow, and took
Harrison by the lapel of his dinner-jacket.
“Bad line, my friend,” he said gravely. “Take my advice and don’t
attempt it before Vernon. I’m advising you for your good.”
“Well, then, who the devil was it?” Harrison snapped impatiently.
“Ah! there you have me,” Greatorex said.
“But, good God, G.,” Harrison expostulated. “_You_ don’t believe that
it was a--er--an apparition.”
“Dunno what to think,” Greatorex said.
Harrison blew a deep breath of disgust. “I thought you had more sense,”
he snapped out.
“Well, I’m willing to be convinced,” Greatorex replied; “if you have
any other explanation to offer.”
But Harrison had nothing further to say in the matter just then. He
wanted to see Phyllis Messenger first, alone. When he had got his
evidence, he would be ready to offer his explanation.
They found only Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Greatorex in the drawing-room
when they entered by the French window. Messenger, his daughter,
Stevens and Fell had gone back to the hotel, she explained, and Vernon
and Lady Ulrica were in the morning-room, conferring, so Mrs. Harrison
suggested, over the events of the evening.
“I don’t quite know whether Mr. Fell means to come back,” Mrs. Harrison
concluded with a lift of her eyebrows. “He seemed--well, rather ashamed
of himself altogether. I’m not sure that he hasn’t taken his things.”
“Just as well, perhaps,” her husband said. And then his observant
glance fell on the tulle scarf thrown over the back of a chair.
“Did you find out whom that belonged to?” he asked sharply.
“Oh!” ejaculated Mrs. Harrison. “They left it behind after all. It’s
Miss Messenger’s. She identified it at once and wondered how it had got
here.”
“Certain it was hers, I suppose?” Harrison asked.
“Oh yes! It’s got her initials worked on it,” his wife told him.
For a few seconds Harrison stood thoughtfully drawing the scarf through
his hands, then dropping it back on to the chair, he said: “That’s all
right, then. Hadn’t we better be going to bed? It’s after one o’clock.”
2
When Charles Harrison set about the investigation of that night’s
mystery, he was still intent upon the theory that the appearance he had
seen and spoken to was in fact the living personality of some stranger
who had been staying either in the village or possibly at Orton Park,
the grounds of which sloped down to the other side of the lake. There
were a couple of canoes and a punt in Lord Orton’s boathouse, and
the crossing presented no real difficulty. He was, however, finally
deflected from that theory in the course of his interview with Miss
Messenger.
He had been quite firm at breakfast. As a result, no doubt, of the
“conference” they had held the night before, Lady Ulrica and Vernon
were eager to begin an immediate discussion of what they called the
“phenomenon.” Harrison effectively stopped that.
“No! no!! no!!!” he said, putting his hands over his ears as soon as
the topic was opened. “Now, Vernon, you profess to be scientific in
your investigations. You--you insisted on that in your--er--lecture
under the cedar last night. Now listen to me. I promise to thrash
this out with you--presently. To--to discuss the thing in all its
bearings. But I at least mean to be thorough and careful in my
methods. Give me to-day to examine the case. I must cross-examine the
principal witness--er--alone. Yes. I insist on that. You’ll have the
very best intentions, of course. I don’t doubt it. But you’ll offer
suggestions--unconsciously, perhaps, but you’ll do it.”
“And you?” Vernon replied. “Won’t you put suggestions into the
examinee’s mind, too?”
“Hm! hm! You’ll have to trust me,” Harrison said. “I assure you that
I only want to arrive at the truth of--of the actual facts, you
understand. I want to know what Miss Messenger was doing down there
for three hours or more. And if you want me to discuss the thing with
you, you must let me get at the facts in my own way. I--I make that
a condition. If you won’t agree to it, I shall refuse to discuss the
thing at all.”
“Oh, very well,” Vernon agreed.
And Harrison had gone off to the hotel after breakfast, in the cheerful
state of mind of one who has good reasons to hope for the best.
Miss Messenger received him in the private parlour of the hotel, a room
that evidenced her desperate efforts to alleviate the influence of the
original furniture.
She professed to be completely recovered from the effects of her
adventure, and indeed she displayed no sign of illness. Her engagement
to Robert Fell was, it seemed, an understood thing, and she received
Mr. Harrison’s congratulations with the air proper to the occasion.
Harrison, who had only known her very slightly hitherto, decided in his
own mind that she was a very charming young woman, and came at last to
the purpose of his visit with a slight effect of apology.
“I--I don’t know whether you have heard, Miss Messenger,” he began,
“that we had another visitor in the plantation last night.”
She opened her eyes at that, with a genuine surprise that could not be
mistaken.
“Didn’t Mr. Fell or your father say anything to you about it?” Harrison
continued.
She looked at him with obvious perplexity. “About another visitor?” she
repeated. “No, they haven’t told me anything. I don’t quite understand.”
“I--I’ll explain in a moment,” Harrison said. “There are just one or
two little questions that I’d like to ask you first, if you don’t mind?”
She shook her head with a sigh. “No, I don’t mind,” she said. “I
suppose as a matter of fact you know all about it already?”
“Something,” Harrison agreed, shrewdly guessing at her meaning. “So far
as you and Mr. Fell are concerned at least. But--well--I’ll tell you in
a moment why I want to know--could you say what the time was when you
got to the plantation?”
“A little before ten,” she told him. “I heard the stable clock in Orton
Park strike after I’d been there a few minutes.”
“Hm! hm! And what did you _do_ exactly between ten o’clock
and--er--half-past twelve or so?” Harrison enquired.
Phyllis Messenger’s face glowed suddenly red. “I--I don’t know,” she
said after a marked pause.
“Did you go to sleep, for instance?” Harrison asked with a friendly
smile.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t a sleep,” she said, and then went on
quickly: “Oh, you said you knew--something. Don’t you know how--how
unhappy I was?”
Mr. Harrison turned his head away and stared at the ferns in the
fireplace. “I’ve heard something,” he murmured.
“About my friend Rhoda Burton?” Miss Messenger said.
“Ah! yes. She--she committed suicide about a month ago, I believe?”
Harrison mumbled.
“Well, I meant to do that, too,” Phyllis Messenger burst out with
a sudden boldness. “In there, where they found me. I meant to--to
strangle myself with my tulle scarf. I tied it round my neck and I
meant to do it. And then I couldn’t.”
“Yes?” Harrison prompted her gently.
“Oh, and then I threw it down--the scarf, I mean--and everything went
black. I thought I was going to die. I went down on my knees and tried
to pray. I don’t remember anything after that until--until they found
me.”
Harrison’s agile mind seized the significance of this evidence in
a flash. At one stroke it eliminated the probability of that scarf
having been worn by a stranger. If the scarf had lain there by the
side of the swooning Miss Messenger, no one but a mad woman could have
callously picked it up, worn it and postured before a group of half a
dozen people without making the least mention of the helpless figure
to whom it belonged. For a moment he played with the thought of a
madwoman, but dismissed it. If there was a madwoman in Long Orton or
the neighbourhood, he would have heard of her.
He sighed heavily, and chiefly for the sake of giving himself more
time, said, “You’re quite sure you had the scarf with you?”
“Well, of course,” Miss Messenger replied. “I only bought it last
week;” and added with a shudder, “but I don’t ever want to see it
again.” There could be no question of the vividness of the unhappy
memories associated in her mind with that particular article of apparel.
“It doesn’t follow, however,” Harrison went on thoughtfully after a
perceptible pause, “that because you have no memory of anything after
you fainted, you never moved from the spot where you were found?”
Miss Messenger shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t say anything about
that, can I?” she asked.
“You see,” Harrison explained, “earlier in the evening, it may have
been about eleven or thereabouts, my friends and I saw someone down by
the plantation, and--and went down to investigate. And there we met and
spoke to--er--someone who was unquestionably wearing your scarf--which
she later discarded. It was found later by myself, as a matter of fact.”
“How very extraordinary!” was all Miss Messenger’s comment. Her
surprise and interest, however, were beyond question.
“Inexplicable,” Harrison agreed.
“But who _could_ it have been?” Miss Messenger besought him.
“It could, so far as I can make out, only have been yourself--in a
trance,” Harrison replied. He instinctively disliked the sound of
that last word, but could find no other. People who have “swooned”
or fainted do not walk about in that condition. “Er--you’ve never, I
suppose--er--been in that state of unconsciousness before?” he went on
quickly, as if to obliterate the effect of the too suggestive word.
“Not actually,” Miss Messenger said, hesitated, and then continued:
“but I’ve--felt queer once or twice lately.”
“Queer?” Harrison prompted her.
“As if--as if I were going off like I did last night,” she explained.
“Only lately, though. Only since my friend died.”
“Mrs. Burton?”
She nodded.
“Hm. Very sad, very,” said Harrison, getting up, and then he added: “It
was very good of you to answer my questions, and I think, now, that I
am satisfied as to the identity of the stranger. You must have walked
in your trance last night, Miss Messenger, and made your way back again
to the place where we found you, dropping your scarf on the way. You
must forgive us for not recognising you in the half-light.”
Miss Messenger had no comment to make on that explanation. It was
evident that she was not in a position to deny his statement, even if
she had had the desire to do so....
And after that interview, Harrison began to see his way quite clearly.
When he left the hotel he visited the scene of last night’s encounter
in order to make a thorough examination of the place itself, and
especially of that curious little enceinte among the yews where Miss
Messenger had been found. He thought it possible that he might
discover fresh evidence.
No fresh evidence, however, rewarded his investigation.
3
He was, nevertheless, in very good spirits at dinner that night. The
discussion had been postponed by common consent until the evening, but
he once or twice referred to it in the course of the meal.
Greatorex, noting his host’s almost gleeful manner, asked him if he had
got new and conclusive evidence in the process of his investigations,
but Harrison refused to answer that.
“No, no,” he said. “We’ll have it out after dinner. Vernon has got his
case, and I have mine. We’ll argue, and then put it to the vote. Do you
agree, Vernon?”
Vernon, no less confident than his antagonist, agreed willingly enough,
and later, when they were all gathered together in the drawing-room, he
agreed also to open the discussion.
“It’s all so clear to me,” he said. “I cannot see how there can be two
opinions.”
“Well, fire away,” Harrison encouraged him.
Vernon leaned back in his chair, and clasped his hands behind his head.
“I postulate to begin with,” he said, “that we were all in precisely
the right, expectant, slightly inert condition necessary to the
production of phenomena. We were sitting in a circle, and our conscious
minds were completely occupied with the subject of spiritualism. We
were, in fact, according to the common agreement about such things, in
the state that best enables us to assist any possible manifestations
by--by giving out power.
“The chief medium in the case was unquestionably the unconscious person
of Miss Messenger. She was in what I may call an ideal trance for the
purpose of manifestation. Also, by an extraordinary chance, her body
was secluded and in darkness. If the conditions had been planned by
experts they could hardly have been improved upon. After that our
explanation of the apparition and of the ‘direct voice’ phenomena is
largely dependent upon precedents.
“With regard to the first, I claim that von Schrenck-Notsing’s
photographs taken in Paris and elsewhere in 1912 and 1913 have
sufficiently demonstrated that in favourable conditions and with
a sensitive medium, a form of matter, not as yet scientifically
described, may be drawn from the body of the medium and used by the
external agency to build up representations not only of the human form,
but also of familiar materials. I mention that in order that we may
not be in any way disturbed by the fact that the materialisation was
dressed in a gown of different colour from that worn by Miss Messenger.
That gown too was instantly woven out of the creative flux.
“Indeed, the only thing that was not so momentarily created and
re-absorbed was the tulle scarf. That must actually have been taken
from Miss Messenger’s unconscious body and handled by the temporary
form evolved out of the teleplasm. There is good precedent for that, as
I believe I said last night.”
He paused a moment and then, as Harrison did not immediately reply, he
added: “And if we are all agreed, after we have finished our discussion
this evening, I would like to have separate written accounts from
each of you as to your sight of the phenomenon; those, backed by the
evidence of Mr. Messenger, his daughter and the police sergeant, ought,
I think, to establish one of the most remarkable and convincing cases
ever reported to the S.P.R.”
“Steady, steady, Vernon,” Harrison put in. “I can’t say that I’m
absolutely convinced as yet.”
“What’s the alternative explanation?” Vernon asked.
“That it was Miss Messenger herself whom we saw in a state of trance,”
Harrison said. “You see I concede you the trance.”
“But, my dear man,” Vernon expostulated, “the figure we saw by the
wood was not like Miss Messenger.”
“No?” Harrison replied. “Very well, let’s analyse the differences as
observed by the various witnesses. You begin, Vernon. Was there any
difference in height?”
“None to speak of that I noticed,” Vernon admitted, “but that woman had
a distinctly more spiritual face than Miss Messenger.”
“Anything else?” Harrison pressed him.
“We only saw her for a few moments, of course,” Vernon said. “I
must confess that at the moment I can’t think of any other marked
differences. It--it was another face and expression, that’s all.”
“And you, Emma,” said Harrison, looking at his wife.
“I couldn’t be absolutely sure that it wasn’t Miss Messenger,” she
replied. “We were all in rather an excited state just then, weren’t we?”
“But the dress was a different colour,” put in Mrs. Greatorex. “That
first woman was in white. Miss Messenger had a grey dress on.”
“I think, you know,” her husband continued, “that Vernon rather hit the
mark when he said that the first girl had a more spiritual face. That
was what struck me.”
“Haven’t you any comments, Lady Ulrica?” Harrison asked.
Lady Ulrica sighed. “I’m afraid,” she said honestly, “that for
observations of that kind, you can’t count on me one way or the other.
I’d left my glasses under the cedar, and I’m as blind as a bat without
them.”
Harrison smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, come, what does it
all amount to?” he asked. “Is there any reason in the world why we
should resort to so far-fetched an explanation as the supernatural?
Let us consider the evidence as if we were going to put it before a
body of expert opinion. We were, according to Vernon’s own admission,
in an ‘expectant, slightly inert condition.’ We had been talking
spiritualism for an hour or more after dinner, in very exceptional
conditions. I never remember a stiller or an--er--more emotional night.
When we were all worked up by Vernon’s eloquence into a peculiar
state of anticipation, we saw a white figure down by the lake. It
was inevitable, in these circumstances, that we should approach it
in a state of emotion. And what did we find? We found a young woman
walking in trance. Well, that state had very naturally altered her
usual appearance, given her face a more spiritual expression. No doubt,
she was very pale. She told me this morning that she had contemplated
suicide just before she fell into this trance, and I conceive it as
being probable that her highly disturbed mental condition had reacted
upon her physical appearance.
“Now let us consider what actually happened. Three observers, Emma,
Fell and myself, had seen Miss Messenger before and failed in those
circumstances to recognise her. Is that a very remarkable failure
when we give due weight to our own excited anticipations, coupled
with the fact that the girl was in an altogether abnormal physical
state? Furthermore we find that four people fail later to recognise
Miss Messenger as the original of the supposed stranger. Of these
four, one admits that she cannot be trusted as an observer of the
details, another that she hardly noticed the stranger’s face. A third,
Vernon, cannot deny that he was the victim of a prepossession, that
he anticipated a spiritualistic phenomenon and he is not therefore a
reliable witness. The fourth is our friend Greatorex. Now, G., I ask
you in all seriousness whether you would be prepared to swear on oath
that the figure we saw for a few seconds in the moonlight down by the
yews could not have been Miss Messenger in a state of trance. On your
oath, now.”
“No, Harrison, no. I would not be prepared to swear that,” Greatorex
said. “In fact, I believe you’re right about the whole affair.”
“But the dress, Mr. Harrison,” Mrs. Greatorex put in. “That woman by
the wood was in white. Miss Messenger was wearing a grey dress.”
“The effect of moonlight, my dear lady,” Harrison replied. “Moonlight
takes the colour out of everything.” As he spoke, he got to his feet
and took a turn up the room. As he had argued, the conviction of the
truth of his theory had been steadily growing in his own mind. He
wanted, now, to clinch the thing once and for all, eliminate the last
possibility of sending in a report to the S. P. R., and lay the ghost
for ever. But as he reached the end of the room, his eye fell on the
tulle scarf left by Miss Messenger on the previous night, now neatly
folded by the housemaid and laid on a table by the window. And he
realised in an instant that the confounded thing was grey and matched
the colour of Miss Messenger’s dress. Why then had that scarf also not
appeared white in the moonlight? It meant nothing; no doubt he might
be able to evolve some explanation, but at the present moment it might
most vexatiously complicate his case. Everyone, strangely enough, had
recognised that scarf. It was the one thing that had appeared to be
unaltered by the unusual conditions.
Harrison was intellectually honest, but the temptation to suppress that
piece of evidence was too strong for him. As he turned, he was between
the table and the rest of the party, and he stretched his hand out
behind him, and surreptitiously crammed the scarf into the pocket of
his dinner-jacket.
But his peroration was spoilt. The enthusiasm seemed to have been
suddenly drained out of him.
“Hm! hm! Well, in effect,” he said as he returned, “I submit that
there is no reason whatever to seek a supernatural explanation of our
experience last night. What do you all say?”
“Personally, I’m quite convinced that it was Miss Messenger we saw,”
his wife replied cheerfully.
“Very probably, I should say,” Greatorex agreed.
“It certainly seems the most likely explanation,” Mrs. Greatorex added.
“And you, Lady Ulrica?” Harrison asked.
“Well, of course, if you are all sure it was Miss Messenger, I don’t
see that there’s anything more to be said,” Lady Ulrica replied.
“All of us except Vernon,” Harrison amended.
Vernon sighed and leaned back in his chair. “You’ve pretty effectively
diddled my report to the S.P.R., anyway,” he said. “If no one is
prepared to swear that the person we first saw was not Miss Messenger,
I’ve got no evidence.”
“There is still Fell, of course,” Harrison suggested.
“I don’t think we can rely upon anything Mr. Fell might say,” Mrs.
Harrison put in. “I’m afraid he had a reason for not _wanting_ to
recognise Miss Messenger just then. I don’t think Mr. Fell has behaved
at all nicely.”
“I think we’ll drop it, Harrison,” Vernon said with a touch of
magnanimity. “I can’t say that you’ve convinced me, even about last
night’s experience, but you’ve got all the ordinary probabilities on
your side. It’s curious how difficult it is even to _plan_ a perfect
test case.”
4
Harrison had triumphed. He ought to have been content. But the truth is
that he had satisfied everyone but himself. “That confounded scarf,” as
he began to think of it, bothered and perplexed him. He stowed it away
in a drawer when he went to bed, but in the small hours of the morning
he found himself wide awake reconsidering all the evidence. It had come
to him with a perfectly detestable clearness that if Vernon’s theory
was a true one, that scarf was the single piece of common earthly
material that had been used in the presentation of the phenomenon they
had witnessed; and it was, at least, a strangely significant fact that
the scarf should be the one thing they had all seen so clearly, the one
thing the appearance of which had not been influenced by their mental
emotion or the effect of moonlight.
The coincidence bothered him. He could not find an explanation.
It continued to bother him the next morning. It came between him and
his work. And after lunch he put the scarf in his pocket and made it an
excuse to call again on Miss Messenger. There were, perhaps, one or two
further points that might be elucidated in conversation with her. She
had taken, he judged, almost as violent an antipathy to the thing as he
had himself. The sight of it might produce some kind of shock, might
just possibly revive some memory of what had happened during her trance.
When he arrived at the hotel, Miss Messenger was in the garden, and
he was shown up into her private sitting-room to await her. Still
thoughtfully considering the best means to approach the production of
the scarf, he walked absent-mindedly across the room and began to stare
at the photographs on the mantelpiece. And then, suddenly, he became
aware of the illusion that he was gazing at a background of dark yews,
against which was vividly posed the delicate profile of some exquisite
cameo. He blinked his eyes in amazement, and the background changed to
the commonplace detail reflected in the mirror. But the face remained,
the very profile he had seen by the plantation, a face sensitive and
full of sadness, staring wistfully out as if at some unwelcome vision
of the future.
Harrison shivered. It seemed to him as if a thin draught of cold air
were blowing past him. And then, for a moment, he had a sense of
immense distances and strange activities beyond the knowledge of common
life. He was aware of some old experience newly recognised after long
ages of forgetfulness; an experience that came back to him elusive as
the thought of a recent dream. But while he struggled to place that
fugitive memory, the door behind him opened, and the dark curtain of
physical reality was suddenly interposed between him and his vision.
He heard the voice of Miss Messenger speaking to him close at hand.
“That’s my friend, Rhoda Burton,” she was saying. “The photograph was
taken only a week before she died. She was in great trouble even then,
poor darling.”
HERE ENDS SIGNS AND WONDERS, THE THIRD BOOK PRINTED AT THE GOLDEN
COCKEREL PRESS, WALTHAM SAINT LAWRENCE, BERKSHIRE. THIS EDITION OF
1500 COPIES FINISHED ON THE 15TH. OF JUNE 1921.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling which may have been in use at the time
of publication has been retained.