"_No!_" the whisper replied.
"Is it Watts?"
"_Yes._"
"It is Isaac Watts. Now it is his science against yours, Mr.
Stinchfield."
Bartol fell into the mode at once. "We are glad to be so honored. Now
Watts, I want--and I must have--incontestable proof of the psychic's
abnormal power--nothing else can save her from State prison. Do you
realize that?"
"_We do._"
"Very well, proceed."
"_What would you call incontestable proof?_"
"I should say a registered pressure on the key or the lighting of the
lamp above the cabinet--"
A vivid red flash lit up the room. Stinchfield shouted, "The lamp--the
lamp was lit!"
His excitement, to all but Bartol, was ludicrously high, and Mrs. Joyce
openly chuckled. "What else do you want done, Mr. Science?"
"Writing independent of Mrs. Ollnee," replied Bartol.
After a long and painful silence the bell tinkled faintly, and as all
listened breathlessly the zither began to play.
"Now who is doing that?" asked the engineer.
"_Turn on the green light!_" suggested the Voice.
Stinchfield lit the green lamp, and by its glow the psychic was seen in
her cage reclining limply, her face ghostly white in the light. Bartol
looked about the circle. Every hand was in view, and yet the zither
continued to play its weird and wistful little tune. Leo and Mrs. Joyce
took this as a matter of course, but the men sat in rigid amazement.
"_Lights out!_" whispered the Voice.
Stinchfield put out his lamp. "That is astounding," he said. "I cannot
analyze that."
"_Will you swear the psychic did not do it?_" asked the Voice.
The engineer hesitated. "Yes," he finally said.
"_Is this sufficient?_" asked the unseen.
Bartol replied. "Sufficient for my argument; but I do not understand
these physical effects, and the jury may demand other proof. It will be
necessary for us to show that the messages which misled, as well as
those which comforted, came from some power outside the psychic and
beyond her control. I believe that, as in the case of Anna
Rothe--condemned by a German court to a long term of imprisonment--the
charge of imposture and swindling made against Mrs. Ollnee must lie,
unless I can demonstrate that these messages come from her subconscious
self in some occult way, or from personalities other than herself. In
fact, the whole case against Mrs. Ollnee lies in the question--does she
believe in The Voices as entities existing and acting outside herself--"
He interrupted himself to say: "Something is tapping my hand. It feels
like the small tin horn."
"_It is!_" came the answer in such volume that it could be heard all
over the room.
"_Does this not prove the medium innocent of ventriloquism?_"
"Stinchfield--what about this?" asked Bartol.
The engineer could only repeat: "I don't understand it. It is out of my
range."
Again the red lamp above the cabinet flashed, and by its momentary glow
the horn was seen floating high over the cage, in which the medium sat
motionless and ghastly white.
"Shall I flashlight that?" asked Stinchfield again.
"_No_," answered the Voice. "_The flashlight is very dangerous. We must
use it only for the supreme thing. Be patient!_"
There was no longer any spirit of jocularity in the room. Each one
acknowledged the presence of something profoundly mysterious, something
capable of transforming physical science from top to bottom, something
so far-reaching in its effect on law and morals as to benumb the
faculties of those who perceived it. It was in no sense a religious awe
with Bartol; it was the humbleness which comes to the greatest minds as
they confront the unknowable deeps of matter and of space.
The boy and girl forgot their names, their sex. They touched hands as
two infinitely small insects might do in the impenetrable night of their
world (their hates as unimportant as their loves). Only the bereaved
wife and mother leaned forward with the believer's full faith in the
heaven from which the beloved forms of her dead were about to issue.
Suddenly the curtains of the alcove opened, disclosing a narrow strip of
some glowing white substance. It was not metal, and it was not drapery.
It was something not classified in science, and Stinchfield stared at it
with analytic eyes, talking under breath to Bartol. "It is not
phosphorus, but like it. I wonder if it emits heat?"
Mrs. Joyce explained: "It is the half-opened door into the celestial
plane. I saw a face looking out."
This light vanished as silently as it came, and the zither began to play
again, and a multitude of fairy voices--like a splendid chorus heard far
down a shining hall--sang exquisitely but sadly an unknown anthem. While
still the men of law and science listened in stupefaction the voices
died out, and the zither, still playing, rose in the air, and at the
instant when it was sounding nearest the ceiling the red lamp above the
cabinet was again lighted, and the instrument, played by two faintly
perceived hands, continued floating in the air.
Silent, open-mouthed, staring, Stinchfield heard the zither descend to
the table before him. Then he awoke. "I must photograph _that_!"
"_Not yet_," insisted the Voice. "_Wait for a more important sign._"
In Victor's mind a complete revulsion to faith had come. His heart went
out in a rush of remorseful tenderness and awe. The last lingering doubt
of his mother disappeared. Like a flash of lightning memory swept back
over his past. All he had seen and heard of the "ghost-room" stood
revealed in a pure white light. "_It was all true--all of it. She has
never deceived me or any one else; she is wonderful and pure as an
angel!_" Incredible as were the effects he had seen, and which he had
rejected as unconscious trickery, not one of them was more destructive
of the teaching of his books than this vision of the zither played high
in the air by sad, sweet hands. He longed to clasp his mother to his
bosom to ask her forgiveness, but his throat choked with an emotion he
could not utter.
Bartol, with tense voice, said to Stinchfield: "We have succeeded in
paralleling Crookes' experiment. With this alone I can save her."
The flash of radiance from the cabinet interrupted him, and a new
voice--an imperative voice--called:
"_Green light!_"
Stinchfield turned his switch, and there in the glow of the lamp stood a
tall female figure with pale, sweet, oval face and dark, mysterious
eyes.
"It is Altair!" exclaimed Leo.
Victor shivered with awe and exalted admiration, for the eyes seemed to
look straight at him. The room was filled with that familiar
unaccountable odor, and a cold wind blew as before from the celestial
visitant, with suggestions of limitless space and cold, white light.
"_Be faithful_," the sweet Voice said. "_Do not grieve. Do your work.
Good-by._"
The vision lasted but an instant, but in that moment Stinchfield and
Bartol both perceived the psychic in her electric prison, lying like a
corpse with lolling head and ghostly, sunken cheeks. She seemed to have
lost half her bulk; like a partly filled garment she draped her chair.
The engineer spoke in a voice soft, pleading, husky with excitement.
"May I flashlight now?"
"_Not that--but this!_" uttered a man's voice, and forth from the
cabinet a faintly luminous mist appeared.
"_Red lamp!_"
In the glow of the sixteen-candle-power light the face of a bearded man
was plainly seen. It wore a look of grave expectancy.
"Shall I fire?" asked Stinchfield.
"_It may destroy our instrument_," answered the figure. "_But proceed._"
The blinding flash which followed was accompanied by a cry, followed by
a moan, and Lucy Ollnee was heard to topple from her chair to the floor.
In the moment of horrified silence which followed the Voice commanded:
"_Be silent! Do not stir! Turn off your current._"
In his excitement Stinchfield turned off both light and current, and
left the whole room in darkness. Victor was on his feet crying out: "She
has fallen! She is dying!"
"_Stay where you are, my son. Keep the room dark. We will take care of
your mother._"
So absolute was his faith at the moment, Victor resumed his seat, though
he was trembling with fear. Leo reached for his hand. "Don't be
frightened. They will care for her."
"We have witnessed the miraculous," declared Bartol, stricken into
irresolution by what had taken place.
Mrs. Joyce, accustomed to these marvels, added her word of warning.
"Don't go to her yet. Spirits are all about her. It has been a terrible
shock, but they will heal her."
Stunned silent, baffled by what he had seen, the scientist sat with his
hand on the switches controlling the lights ready to carry out the
orders of his invisible colleague.
"_Red light!_" commanded the Voice. "_Approach--quietly. Victor, take
charge of your mother's body. She will not re-enter it. Her spirit is
with us._"
Victor went forward and knelt in agony while the engineer lifted the
cage and delivered the unconscious psychic into his hands.
* * * * *
Lucy Ollnee breathed no more. She had died as she had lived, a martyr to
the unseen world.
But her death was triumphant, for on the sensitive plate of each camera
science and law were able to read the proof of her power. In the dark
face of his grandsire Victor read a stern contempt as though he said:
"Deny and still deny. In the end you _must_ believe."
In the alcove on the pad these words were written in his mother's hand:
"_Do not grieve. My work is done. I do not go far. I shall be near to
cheer and guide you. Your future is secure. Work hard, be patient, and
all will be well. Farewell, but not good-by._"
Below, written in the quaint script which Victor recognized, were these
words: "_Men of science and of law, blazon forth the marvels you have
seen and tested. Make the world ring with them; in such wise will you
advance veneration for God and remove the fear of death._
"_WATTS._"