frozen in some deadly inhibition to move or speak, I have no idea: I
suppose that at the utmost it was a dozen seconds. Then the spectre
turned, and went out as it had come. We heard his steps pass along the
parqueted floor; there was the sound of bolts withdrawn from the front
door, and with a crash that shook the house it slammed to.
“It’s all over,” said Margaret. “God have mercy on him!”
* * * * *
Now the reader may put precisely what construction he pleases on
this visitation from the dead. He need not, indeed, consider it to
have been a visitation from the dead at all, but say that there had
been impressed on the scene, where this murder and suicide happened,
some sort of emotional record, which in certain circumstances could
translate itself into images visible and invisible. Waves of ether,
or what not, may conceivably retain the impress of such scenes; they
may be held, so to speak, in solution, ready to be precipitated.
Or he may hold that the spirit of the dead man indeed made itself
manifest, revisiting in some sort of spiritual penance and remorse
the place where his crime was committed. Naturally, no materialist
will entertain such an explanation for an instant, but then there is
no one so obstinately unreasonable as the materialist. Beyond doubt
a dreadful deed was done there, and Margaret’s last utterance is not
inapplicable.
Mr. Tilly’s Séance
Mr. Tilly’s Séance
Mr. Tilly had only the briefest moment for reflection, when, as he
slipped and fell on the greasy wood pavement at Hyde Park Corner, which
he was crossing at a smart trot, he saw the huge traction-engine with
its grooved ponderous wheels towering high above him.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” he said petulantly, “it will certainly crush me
quite flat, and I shan’t be able to be at Mrs. Cumberbatch’s séance!
Most provoking! A-ow!”
The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the first half of his
horrid anticipations was thoroughly fulfilled. The heavy wheels passed
over him from head to foot and flattened him completely out. Then the
driver (too late) reversed his engine and passed over him again, and
finally lost his head, whistled loudly and stopped. The policeman on
duty at the corner turned quite faint at the sight of the catastrophe,
but presently recovered sufficiently to hold up the traffic, and ran to
see what on earth could be done. It was all so much “up” with Mr. Tilly
that the only thing possible was to get the hysterical engine-driver
to move clear. Then the ambulance from the hospital was sent for, and
Mr. Tilly’s remains, detached with great difficulty from the road (so
firmly had they been pressed into it), were reverently carried away
into the mortuary....
Mr. Tilly during this had experienced one moment’s excruciating pain,
resembling the severest neuralgia as his head was ground beneath the
wheel, but almost before he realised it, the pain was past, and he
found himself, still rather dazed, floating or standing (he did not
know which) in the middle of the road. There had been no break in
his consciousness; he perfectly recollected slipping, and wondered
how he had managed to save himself. He saw the arrested traffic, the
policeman with white wan face making suggestions to the gibbering
engine-driver, and he received the very puzzling impression that the
traction engine was all mixed up with him. He had a sensation of
red-hot coals and boiling water and rivets all around him, but yet no
feeling of scalding or burning or confinement. He was, on the contrary,
extremely comfortable, and had the most pleasant consciousness of
buoyancy and freedom. Then the engine puffed and the wheels went round,
and immediately, to his immense surprise, he perceived his own crushed
remains, flat as a biscuit, lying on the roadway. He identified them
for certain by his clothes, which he had put on for the first time that
morning, and one patent leather boot which had escaped demolition.
“But what on earth has happened?” he said. “Here am I, and yet that
poor pressed flower of arms and legs is me--or rather I--also. And how
terribly upset the driver looks. Why, I do believe that I’ve been run
over! It did hurt for a moment, now I come to think of it.... My good
man, where are you shoving to? Don’t you see me?”
He addressed these two questions to the policeman, who appeared to walk
right through him. But the man took no notice, and calmly came out
on the other side: it was quite evident that he did not see him, or
apprehend him in any way.
Mr. Tilly was still feeling rather at sea amid these unusual
occurrences, and there began to steal into his mind a glimpse of the
fact which was so obvious to the crowd which formed an interested but
respectful ring round his body. Men stood with bared heads; women
screamed and looked away and looked back again.
“I really believe I’m dead,” said he. “That’s the only hypothesis which
will cover the facts. But I must feel more certain of it before I do
anything. Ah! Here they come with the ambulance to look at me. I must
be terribly hurt, and yet I don’t feel hurt. I should feel hurt surely
if I was hurt. I must be dead.”
Certainly it seemed the only thing for him to be, but he was far from
realising it yet. A lane had been made through the crowd for the
stretcher-bearers, and he found himself wincing when they began to
detach him from the road.
“Oh, do take care!” he said. “That’s the sciatic nerve protruding there
surely, isn’t it? A-ow! No, it didn’t hurt after all. My new clothes,
too: I put them on to-day for the first time. What bad luck! Now you’re
holding my leg upside down. Of course all my money comes out of my
trouser pocket. And there’s my ticket for the séance; I must have that:
I may use it after all.”
He tweaked it out of the fingers of the man who had picked it up, and
laughed to see the expression of amazement on his face as the card
suddenly vanished. That gave him something fresh to think about, and
he pondered for a moment over some touch of association set up by it.
“I have it,” he thought. “It is clear that the moment I came into
connection with that card, it became invisible. I’m invisible myself
(of course to the grosser sense), and everything I hold becomes
invisible. Most interesting! That accounts for the sudden appearances
of small objects at a séance. The spirit has been holding them, and as
long as he holds them they are invisible. Then he lets go, and there’s
the flower or the spirit-photograph on the table. It accounts, too, for
the sudden disappearances of such objects. The spirit has taken them,
though the scoffers say that the medium has secreted them about his
person. It is true that when searched he sometimes appears to have done
so; but, after all, that may be a joke on the part of the spirit. Now,
what am I to do with myself.... Let me see, there’s the clock. It’s
just half-past ten. All this has happened in a few minutes, for it was
a quarter past when I left my house. Half-past ten now: what does that
mean exactly? I used to know what it meant, but now it seems nonsense.
Ten what? Hours, is it? What’s an hour?”
This was very puzzling. He felt that he used to know what an hour and a
minute meant, but the perception of that, naturally enough, had ceased
with his emergence from time and space into eternity. The conception
of time was like some memory which, refusing to record itself on the
consciousness, lies perdu in some dark corner of the brain, laughing at
the efforts of the owner to ferret it out. While he still interrogated
his mind over this lapsed perception, he found that space as well as
time, had similarly grown obsolete for him, for he caught sight of his
friend Miss Ida Soulsby, whom he knew was to be present at the séance
for which he was bound, hurrying with bird-like steps down the pavement
opposite. Forgetting for the moment that he was a disembodied spirit,
he made the effort of will which in his past human existence would have
set his legs in pursuit of her, and found that the effort of will alone
was enough to place him at her side.
“My dear Miss Soulsby,” he said, “I was on my way to Mrs. Cumberbatch’s
house when I was knocked down and killed. It was far from unpleasant, a
moment’s headache----”
So far his natural volubility had carried him before he recollected
that he was invisible and inaudible to those still closed in by the
muddy vesture of decay, and stopped short. But though it was clear
that what he said was inaudible to Miss Soulsby’s rather large
intelligent-looking ears, it seemed that some consciousness of his
presence was conveyed to her finer sense, for she looked suddenly
startled, a flush rose to her face, and he heard her murmur, “Very odd.
I wonder why I received so vivid an impression of dear Teddy.”
That gave Mr. Tilly a pleasant shock. He had long admired the lady,
and here she was alluding to him in her supposed privacy as “dear
Teddy.” That was followed by a momentary regret that he had been
killed: he would have liked to have been possessed of this information
before, and have pursued the primrose path of dalliance down which it
seemed to lead. (His intentions, of course, would, as always, have
been strictly honourable: the path of dalliance would have conducted
them both, if she consented, to the altar, where the primroses would
have been exchanged for orange blossom.) But his regret was quite
short-lived; though the altar seemed inaccessible, the primrose path
might still be open, for many of the spiritualistic circle in which he
lived were on most affectionate terms with their spiritual guides and
friends who, like himself, had passed over. From a human point of view
these innocent and even elevating flirtations had always seemed to him
rather bloodless; but now, looking on them from the far side, he saw
how charming they were, for they gave him the sense of still having
a place and an identity in the world he had just quitted. He pressed
Miss Ida’s hand (or rather put himself into the spiritual condition of
so doing), and could vaguely feel that it had some hint of warmth and
solidity about it. This was gratifying, for it showed that though he
had passed out of the material plane, he could still be in touch with
it. Still more gratifying was it to observe that a pleased and secret
smile overspread Miss Ida’s fine features as he gave this token of his
presence: perhaps she only smiled at her own thoughts, but in any case
it was he who had inspired them. Encouraged by this, he indulged in
a slightly more intimate token of affection, and permitted himself a
respectful salute, and saw that he had gone too far, for she said to
herself, “Hush, hush!” and quickened her pace, as if to leave these
amorous thoughts behind.
He felt that he was beginning to adjust himself to the new conditions
in which he would now live, or, at any rate, was getting some sort
of inkling as to what they were. Time existed no more for him, nor
yet did space, since the wish to be at Miss Ida’s side had instantly
transported him there, and with a view to testing this further he
wished himself back in his flat. As swiftly as the change of scene in
a cinematograph show he found himself there, and perceived that the
news of his death must have reached his servants, for his cook and
parlour-maid with excited faces, were talking over the event.
“Poor little gentleman,” said his cook. “It seems a shame it does. He
never hurt a fly, and to think of one of those great engines laying him
out flat. I hope they’ll take him to the cemetery from the hospital: I
never could bear a corpse in the house.”
The great strapping parlour-maid tossed her head.
“Well, I’m not sure that it doesn’t serve him right,” she observed.
“Always messing about with spirits he was, and the knockings and
concertinas was awful sometimes when I’ve been laying out supper in
the dining-room. Now perhaps he’ll come himself and visit the rest of
the loonies. But I’m sorry all the same. A less troublesome little
gentleman never stepped. Always pleasant, too, and wages paid to the
day.”
These regretful comments and encomiums were something of a shock to Mr.
Tilly. He had imagined that his excellent servants regarded him with a
respectful affection, as befitted some sort of demigod, and the rôle of
the poor little gentleman was not at all to his mind. This revelation
of their true estimate of him, although what they thought of him could
no longer have the smallest significance, irritated him profoundly.
“I never heard such impertinence,” he said (so he thought) quite out
loud, and still intensely earth-bound, was astonished to see that
they had no perception whatever of his presence. He raised his voice,
replete with extreme irony, and addressed his cook.
“You may reserve your criticism on my character for your saucepans,” he
said. “They will no doubt appreciate them. As regards the arrangements
for my funeral, I have already provided for them in my will, and do not
propose to consult your convenience. At present----”
“Lor’!” said Mrs. Inglis, “I declare I can almost hear his voice, poor
little fellow. Husky it was, as if he would do better by clearing his
throat. I suppose I’d best be making a black bow to my cap. His lawyers
and what not will be here presently.”
Mr. Tilly had no sympathy with this suggestion. He was immensely
conscious of being quite alive, and the idea of his servants behaving
as if he were dead, especially after the way in which they had spoken
about him, was very vexing. He wanted to give them some striking
evidence of his presence and his activity, and he banged his hand
angrily on the dining-room table, from which the breakfast equipage
had not yet been cleared. Three tremendous blows he gave it, and was
rejoiced to see that his parlour-maid looked startled. Mrs. Inglis’s
face remained perfectly placid.
“Why, if I didn’t hear a sort of rapping sound,” said Miss Talton.
“Where did it come from?”
“Nonsense! You’ve the jumps, dear,” said Mrs. Inglis, picking up a
remaining rasher of bacon on a fork, and putting it into her capacious
mouth.
Mr. Tilly was delighted at making any impression at all on either of
these impercipient females.
“Talton!” he called at the top of his voice.
“Why, what’s that?” said Talton. “Almost hear his voice, do you say,
Mrs. Inglis? I declare I did hear his voice then.”
“A pack o’ nonsense, dear,” said Mrs. Inglis placidly. “That’s a prime
bit of bacon, and there’s a good cut of it left. Why, you’re all of a
tremble! It’s your imagination.”
Suddenly it struck Mr. Tilly that he might be employing himself much
better than, with such extreme exertion, managing to convey so slight
a hint of his presence to his parlour-maid, and that the séance at
the house of the medium, Mrs. Cumberbatch, would afford him much
easier opportunities of getting through to the earth-plane again. He
gave a couple more thumps to the table and, wishing himself at Mrs.
Cumberbatch’s, nearly a mile away, scarcely heard the faint scream
of Talton at the sound of his blows before he found himself in West
Norfolk Street.
He knew the house well, and went straight to the drawing-room, which
was the scene of the séances he had so often and so eagerly attended.
Mrs. Cumberbatch, who had a long spoon-shaped face, had already pulled
down the blinds, leaving the room in total darkness except for the
glimmer of the night-light which, under a shade of ruby-glass, stood
on the chimney-piece in front of the coloured photograph of Cardinal
Newman. Round the table were seated Miss Ida Soulsby, Mr. and Mrs.
Meriott (who paid their guineas at least twice a week in order to
consult their spiritual guide Abibel and received mysterious advice
about their indigestion and investments), and Sir John Plaice, who was
much interested in learning the details of his previous incarnation
as a Chaldean priest, completed the circle. His guide, who revealed
to him his sacerdotal career, was playfully called Mespot. Naturally
many other spirits visited them, for Miss Soulsby had no less than
three guides in her spiritual household, Sapphire, Semiramis, and Sweet
William, while Napoleon and Plato were not infrequent guests. Cardinal
Newman, too, was a great favourite, and they encouraged his presence
by the singing in unison of “Lead, kindly Light”: he could hardly ever
resist that....
Mr. Tilly observed with pleasure that there was a vacant seat by the
table which no doubt had been placed there for him. As he entered, Mrs.
Cumberbatch peered at her watch.
“Eleven o’clock already,” she said, “and Mr. Tilly is not here yet. I
wonder what can have kept him. What shall we do, dear friends? Abibel
gets very impatient sometimes if we keep him waiting.”
Mr. and Mrs. Meriott were getting impatient too, for he terribly wanted
to ask about Mexican oils, and she had a very vexing heartburn.
“And Mespot doesn’t like waiting either,” said Sir John, jealous for
the prestige of his protector, “not to mention Sweet William.”
Miss Soulsby gave a little silvery laugh.
“Oh, but my Sweet William’s so good and kind,” she said; “besides, I
have a feeling, quite a psychic feeling, Mrs. Cumberbatch, that Mr.
Tilly is very close.”
“So I am,” said Mr. Tilly.
“Indeed, as I walked here,” continued Miss Soulsby, “I felt that Mr.
Tilly was somewhere quite close to me. Dear me, what’s that?”
Mr. Tilly was so delighted at being sensed, that he could not resist
giving a tremendous rap on the table, in a sort of pleased applause.
Mrs. Cumberbatch heard it too.
“I’m sure that’s Abibel come to tell us that he is ready,” she said. “I
know Abibel’s knock. A little patience, Abibel. Let’s give Mr. Tilly
three minutes more and then begin. Perhaps, if we put up the blinds,
Abibel will understand we haven’t begun.”
This was done, and Miss Soulsby glided to the window, in order
to make known Mr. Tilly’s approach, for he always came along the
opposite pavement and crossed over by the little island in the river
of traffic. There was evidently some lately published news, for the
readers of early editions were busy, and she caught sight of one of
the advertisement-boards bearing in large letters the announcement
of a terrible accident at Hyde Park Corner. She drew in her breath
with a hissing sound and turned away, unwilling to have her psychic
tranquillity upset by the intrusion of painful incidents. But Mr.
Tilly, who had followed her to the window and saw what she had seen,
could hardly restrain a spiritual whoop of exultation.
“Why, it’s all about me!” he said. “Such large letters, too. Very
gratifying. Subsequent editions will no doubt contain my name.”
He gave another loud rap to call attention to himself, and Mrs.
Cumberbatch, sitting down in her antique chair which had once belonged
to Madame Blavatsky, again heard.
“Well, if that isn’t Abibel again,” she said. “Be quiet, naughty.
Perhaps we had better begin.”
She recited the usual invocation to guides and angels, and leaned
back in her chair. Presently she began to twitch and mutter, and
shortly afterwards with several loud snorts, relapsed into cataleptic
immobility. There she lay, stiff as a poker, a port of call, so to
speak, for any voyaging intelligence. With pleased anticipation Mr.
Tilly awaited their coming. How gratifying if Napoleon, with whom he
had so often talked, recognised him and said, “Pleased to see you, Mr.
Tilly. I perceive you have joined us....” The room was dark except for
the ruby-shaded lamp in front of Cardinal Newman, but to Mr. Tilly’s
emancipated perceptions the withdrawal of mere material light made no
difference, and he idly wondered why it was generally supposed that
disembodied spirits like himself produced their most powerful effects
in the dark. He could not imagine the reason for that, and, what
puzzled him still more, there was not to his spiritual perception any
sign of those colleagues of his (for so he might now call them) who
usually attended Mrs. Cumberbatch’s séances in such gratifying numbers.
Though she had been moaning and muttering a long time now, Mr. Tilly
was in no way conscious of the presence of Abibel and Sweet William
and Sapphire and Napoleon. “They ought to be here by now,” he said to
himself.
But while he still wondered at their absence, he saw to his amazed
disgust that the medium’s hand, now covered with a black glove, and
thus invisible to ordinary human vision in the darkness, was groping
about the table and clearly searching for the megaphone-trumpet which
lay there. He found that he could read her mind with the same ease,
though far less satisfaction, as he had read Miss Ida’s half an hour
ago, and knew that she was intending to apply the trumpet to her own
mouth and pretend to be Abibel or Semiramis or somebody, whereas she
affirmed that she never touched the trumpet herself. Much shocked at
this, he snatched up the trumpet himself, and observed that she was not
in trance at all, for she opened her sharp black eyes, which always
reminded him of buttons covered with American cloth, and gave a great
gasp.
“Why, Mr. Tilly!” she said. “On the spiritual plane too!”
The rest of the circle was now singing “Lead, kindly Light” in order to
encourage Cardinal Newman, and this conversation was conducted under
cover of the hoarse crooning voices. But Mr. Tilly had the feeling that
though Mrs. Cumberbatch saw and heard him as clearly as he saw her, he
was quite imperceptible to the others.
“Yes, I’ve been killed,” he said, “and I want to get into touch with
the material world. That’s why I came here. But I want to get into
touch with other spirits too, and surely Abibel or Mespot ought to be
here by this time.”
He received no answer, and her eyes fell before his like those of a
detected charlatan. A terrible suspicion invaded his mind.
“What? Are you a fraud, Mrs. Cumberbatch?” he asked. “Oh, for shame!
Think of all the guineas I have paid you.”
“You shall have them all back,” said Mrs. Cumberbatch. “But don’t tell
of me.”
She began to whimper, and he remembered that she often made that sort
of sniffling noise when Abibel was taking possession of her.
“That usually means that Abibel is coming,” he said, with withering
sarcasm. “Come along, Abibel: we’re waiting.”
“Give me the trumpet,” whispered the miserable medium. “Oh, please give
me the trumpet!”
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Tilly indignantly. “I would
sooner use it myself.”
She gave a sob of relief.
“Oh do, Mr. Tilly!” she said. “What a wonderful idea! It will be
most interesting to everybody to hear you talk just after you’ve been
killed and before they know. It would be the making of me! And I’m
not a fraud, at least not altogether. I do have spiritual perceptions
sometimes; spirits do communicate through me. And when they won’t come
through it’s a dreadful temptation to a poor woman to--to supplement
them by human agency. And how could I be seeing and hearing you now,
and be able to talk to you--so pleasantly, I’m sure--if I hadn’t
super-normal powers? You’ve been killed, so you assure me, and yet I
can see and hear you quite plainly. Where did it happen, may I ask, if
it’s not a painful subject?”
“Hyde Park Corner, half an hour ago,” said Mr. Tilly. “No, it only hurt
for a moment, thanks. But about your other suggestion----”
While the third verse of “Lead, kindly Light” was going on, Mr. Tilly
applied his mind to this difficult situation. It was quite true that
if Mrs. Cumberbatch had no power of communication with the unseen
she could not possibly have seen him. But she evidently had, and had
heard him too, for their conversation had certainly been conducted
on the spirit-plane, with perfect lucidity. Naturally, now that he
was a genuine spirit, he did not want to be mixed up in fraudulent
mediumship, for he felt that such a thing would seriously compromise
him on the other side, where, probably, it was widely known that Mrs.
Cumberbatch was a person to be avoided. But, on the other hand, having
so soon found a medium through whom he could communicate with his
friends, it was hard to take a high moral view, and say that he would
have nothing whatever to do with her.
“I don’t know if I trust you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have a moment’s
peace if I thought that you would be sending all sorts of bogus
messages from me to the circle, which I wasn’t responsible for at all.
You’ve done it with Abibel and Mespot. How can I know that when I don’t
choose to communicate through you, you won’t make up all sorts of
piffle on your own account?”
She positively squirmed in her chair.