Up to this point I have been necessarily thus detailed, but I am eager
now to win past the cruder melodrama of this insanely disordered night.
I am eager to win back from all these damnable and distracting things to
Susan. This book is hers, not mine; it is certainly not Sergeant
Conlon's or Doctor Askew's. So you will forgive me, and understand, if I
present little more than a summary of the immediately following hours.
We found Maltby and Lucette in the drawing-room, worn out with their
night-long vigil; Maltby, somnolent and savage; Lucette still keyed
high, suffering from exasperated nerves which--perhaps for the first
time in her life--she could not control. They were seated as far apart
as the room permitted, having long since talked themselves out, and were
engaged, I think, in tacitly hating one another. The situation was
almost impossible; yet I knew I must dominate it somehow, and begin by
dominating myself--and in the end, with Conlon's and Doctor Askew's
help, I succeeded. Conlon, I confess, proved to be an unexpected ally
all through.
"Now, Mrs. Arthur, and you, Mr. Phar," he stated at once as we entered
the drawing-room together, "I've brought Mr. Hunt in here to read you
his guess at what happened last evenin'. Doctor Askew'll be with us in a
minute, and _he's_ got somethin' to lay before you.... No; Miss Blake's
not come round yet. The doc'll explain about her. But we'll hear from
Mr. Hunt first, see? I've examined him and I'm satisfied he's straight.
You've known him long enough to form your own opinions, but that's mine.
Oh, here's the doc! Go on, Mr. Hunt."
With this lead, I was at length able to persuade Lucette and Maltby to
listen, sullenly enough, to my written analysis. My feeling toward them
both, though better concealed, was quite as hostile as theirs toward me,
but I saw that I caught their reluctant attention and that Maltby was
somewhat impressed by what I had written, and by my interjected
amplifications of the more salient points. I had been careful to
introduce no facts not given me by Sergeant Conlon, and when I had
finished, ignoring Lucette's instant murmur of impatience and
incredulity, I turned to him and said: "Sergeant, is there anything
known to you and not known to me--any one detail discovered during your
examination of Mrs. Hunt's boudoir, say--which makes my deductions
impossible or absurd?"
He reflected a moment, then acknowledged: "Well, no, Mr. Hunt. Things
might 'a' happened like that; maybe they did. But just sayin' so don't
prove they did!"
"May I ask you a few questions?"
"Sure."
"Had Mrs. Hunt's body been moved when you arrived? I mean, from the very
spot where it fell?"
"It had and it hadn't. The doc here found her lyin' face down on the
floor, right in front of the couch. He had to roll her over on her back
to examine her. That's all. The body's there now like that, covered with
a sheet. Nothin' else has been disturbed."
"The body was lying face down, you say?"
"Yes," struck in Doctor Askew; "it was."
"At full length?"
"Yes."
"Isn't that rather surprising?"
"Unquestionably."
"How do you account for the position?"
"There's only one possible explanation," replied Doctor Askew, as if
giving expert testimony from a witness box; "a sudden and complete loss
of balance, pitching the body sharply forward, accompanied by such a
binding of the legs and feet as to prevent any instinctive movement
toward recovery."
"Thank you. Were there any indications of such binding?"
"Yes. Mrs. Hunt's trailing draperies had somehow wound themselves
tightly about her legs below the knee, and I judge her feet were further
impeded by a sort of coverlet which I found touselled up on the rug
beneath them."
"Grant all that!" growled Maltby. "It points to just the opposite of
what we'd all like to think is true. If Mrs. Hunt had risen slowly to
greet a caller in the usual way--well, she wouldn't have gotten herself
tangled up. She was the last woman in the world to do anything
awkwardly. But if she leaped to her feet in terror--what? To defend
herself--or try to escape? Don't you see?"
"Of course we see!" cried Lucette. "It proves everything!"
"Hardly," I replied. "Try to imagine the scene, Maltby, as you seem to
believe it occurred. I won't speak of the major impossibility--that
Susan, a girl you've known and have asked to be your wife, could under
any circumstances be the author of such a crime! We'll pass that. Simply
try to picture the crime itself. Susan, showing no traces of unnatural
excitement, is conducted to my wife's boudoir. She enters, shuts the
door, turns, then rushes at her with so hideous an effect of insane fury
that Gertrude springs up, terrified. Susan--more slightly built than
Gertrude, remember!--grapples with her, tears a paper knife from her
hand, and plunges it deep into her eye, penetrating the brain. Suppose,
if you will, that madness lent her this force. But, obviously, for the
point of the knife to enter the eye in that way, Gertrude must have been
fronting Susan, her chin well raised. Obviously, the force of such a
blow would have thrown her head, her whole body, backward, not forward;
and if her feet were bound, as Doctor Askew says they were, she must
have fallen backward or to one side, certainly not forward at full
length, on her face."
"You've said somethin' this time, Mr. Hunt!" exclaimed Conlon. "There's
a lot to that!"
Maltby was visibly impressed; but not Lucette. "As if," she said, "Susan
wouldn't have arranged the body--afterward--in any way she thought to
her advantage!"
"There wasn't time!" Doctor Askew objected impatiently. "And," he went
on, "it happens that all this is futile! I have proof here,
corroborating Mr. Hunt's remarkably acute theories in the most positive
way."
But before reading what Susan's hand had written, he turned to Sergeant
Conlon, requesting his close attention, and then gave him briefly a
popular lecture on the nature of automatic writing as understood by a
tough-minded neurologist with no faith in the supernatural. It was
really a masterly performance in its way, for he avoided the jargon of
science and cut down to essentials.
"Conlon," he said, "you've often forgotten something, tried to recall
it, and finally given it up. We all have. And then some day, when you
least expected it and were thinking of something else, that forgotten
something has popped into your mind again--eh? All right. Where was it
in the meantime, when you couldn't put your finger on it? Since it
eventually came back, it must have been preserved somewhere. That's
plain enough, isn't it? But when you say something you've forgotten
'pops into your mind' again, you're wrong. It's never been out of your
mind. What too many of us still don't know is that a man's mind has two
parts to it. One part, much the smallest, is consciousness--the part
we're using now, the part we're always aware of. The other part is a big
dark storehouse, where pretty much everything we've forgotten is kept.
We're not aware of the storehouse or the things kept in it, so the
ordinary man doesn't know anything about it. You're not aware of your
spleen, and wouldn't know you had one if doctors hadn't cut up a lot of
people and found spleens in every one of them. You believe you've got a
spleen because we doctors tell you so. Well, I'm telling you now that
your mind has a big storehouse, where most of the things you've
forgotten are preserved. We mind-doctors call it your Unconscious Mind.
All clear so far?... Good.
"Now then--when a man's hypnotized, it means his conscious mind has been
put to sleep, practically, and his unconscious mind has, in a sense,
waked up. When a man's hypnotized we can fish all sorts of queer things
from his big storehouse, his unconscious mind; things he didn't know
were there, things he'd forgotten.... And it's the same with what we
call trances. A man in a trance is a man whose conscious mind is asleep
and whose unconscious mind is awake.
"That's exactly Miss Blake's condition now. The shock of what she saw
last evening threw her into a trance; she doesn't know what's going on
round her--but her unconscious mind has a record, a sort of
phonograph-record of more or less everything that's ever happened to
her, and if she speaks or writes in this trance state she'd simply play
one of these stored-up records for us; play it just like a phonograph,
automatically. Her will power's out of commission, you see; in this
state she's nothing more nor less than a highly complicated instrument.
And the record she plays may be of no interest to anybody; some
long-forgotten incident or experience of childhood, for example. On the
other hand, if we can get the right record going--eh?--we've every
chance of finding out exactly what we want to know!" He paused, fixing
his already attentive pupil with his peculiarly vivid green-blue glance.
"Now, Conlon, _get_ this--it's important! I must ask you to believe one
other thing about the Unconscious Mind--simply take it on my say-so, as
a proved fact: When the conscious mind is temporarily out of
business--as under hypnotism, or in trance--the unconscious mind, like
the sensitive instrument it is, will often obey or respond to outside
suggestions. I can't go into all this, of course. But what I ask you to
believe about Miss Blake is this: In her present state of trance, at my
suggestion, _she has played the right record for us_! She has
automatically written down for us an account of her experiences last
evening. And I assure you this account, obtained in this way, is far
more reliable and far more complete than any she could give us in her
normal, conscious, waking state. There's nothing marvellous or weird
about it, Conlon. We have here"--and he slightly rattled the loose
sheets in his hand--"simply an automatic record of stored-up
impressions. Do you see?"
Conlon grunted that he guessed maybe he saw; at any rate, he was willing
to be shown.
Then Doctor Askew read us Susan's own story of the strange, idiotically
meaningless accident to Gertrude. As it corresponded in every particular
with my vision, I shall not repeat it; but it produced an enormous
impression on Sergeant Conlon and Maltby, and even on Lucette. Taken in
connection with my independent theory of what must have occurred, they
found Susan's story entirely convincing; though whether Lucette really
found it so or had suddenly decided--because of certain uncomfortable
accusations against herself made by Susan's hand--that the whole matter
had gone quite far enough and any further publicity would be a mistake,
I must leave to your later judgment.
As for the coroner, when at length he arrived, he too--to my
astonishment and unspeakable relief--accepted Susan's automatic story
without delay or demur. Here was a stroke of sheer good luck, for a
grateful change--but quite as senseless in itself, when seriously
considered, as the cruel accident to Gertrude. It merely _happened_ that
the coroner's sister was a professional medium, and that he and his
whole family were ardent believers in spiritualism, active missionaries
in that cause. He had started life as an East Side street-urchin, had
the coroner, and had scrambled up somehow from bondage to influence,
fighting his way single-fisted through a hard school that does not often
foster illusions; but I have never met a more eagerly credulous mind. He
accepted the automatic writing as evidence without a moment's cavil,
assuring us at once that it undoubtedly came as a direct message from
the dead.
Doctor Askew's preliminary explanations he simply brushed aside. If Miss
Blake in her present trance state, which he soon satisfied himself was
genuine, had produced this message, then her hand had been controlled by
a disembodied spirit--probably Mrs. Hunt's. There was no arguing with
the man, and on my part, heaven knows, no desire to oppose him! I
listened gratefully for one hour to his wonder tales of spirit
revelations, and blessed him when he reluctantly left us--with the
assurance that Gertrude's death would be at once reported as due to an
unavoidable accident. It was so announced in the noon editions of the
evening papers. Sergeant Conlon and his aids departed by the service
elevator, and were soon replaced by a shocked and grieved clergyman and
a competent undertaker. The funeral--to take place in New Haven--was
arranged for; telegrams were sent; one among them to Phil. Even poor
Miss Goucher was at last remembered and communicated with--only just in
time, I fear, to save her reason. But of her more in its place. And,
meanwhile, throughout all this necessary confusion, Susan slept on. Noon
was past, and she still slept.... And Doctor Askew and I watched beside
her, and talked together.
At precisely seven minutes to three--I was bending over her at the
moment, studying her face for any sign of stirring consciousness--she
quietly opened her eyes.
"Ambo," were her first words, "I believe in God now; a God, anyway. I
believe in _Setebos_----"
V
In my unpracticed, disorderly way--in the hurry of my desire to get
back to Susan--I have again overstepped myself and must, after all,
pause to make certain necessary matters plain. There is nothing else for
it. I have, on reflection, dropped too many threads--the thread of my
own vision, the thread of those first two or three pages scrawled by
Susan before her hand had fully responded to Doctor Askew's control;
other weakly fluttering, loose-ended threads! My respect for the great
narrative writers is increasing enormously, as I bungle onward. "Order
is heaven's first law," and I wish to heaven it might also more
instinctively be mine!
Just after the coroner's departure Maltby left us, but before he left I
insisted upon a brief talk with him in Lucette's presence. I was in no
mood for tact.
"Maltby," I said, "I can't stop now for anything but the plain statement
that you've been a bad friend--to Susan and me. As for you, Lucette,
it's perfectly clear now that Susan believes you responsible for
spreading a slanderous lie about her. Between you, directly or
indirectly, you've managed to get it believed down here that Susan has
been my mistress and was forced to leave New Haven because the scandal
had grown notorious. That's why Susan came here, determined to see you,
Lucette; that's why Gertrude received her. Gertrude was never
underhanded, never a sneak. My guess is, that she suspected you of
slandering Susan, but wasn't sure; and then Susan's unexpected call on
you----"
Lucette flared out at this, interrupting me. "I'm not particularly
interested in your guesswork, Ambrose Hunt! We've had a good deal of it,
already. Besides, I've a raging headache, and I'm too utterly heartsick
even to resent your insults. But I'll say this: I've very strong reasons
for thinking that what you call a lying slander is a fact. Mr. Phar can
tell you why--if he cares to."
With that, she walked out of the room, and I did not see her again until
we met in New Haven at Gertrude's funeral, on which occasion, with
nicely calculated publicity, she was pleased to cut me dead.
When she had gone I turned on Maltby.
"Well?" I demanded.
Maltby, I saw, was something more than ill-at-ease.
"Now see here, Boz," he began, "can't we talk this over without
quarreling? It's so stupid, I mean--between men of the world." I waited,
without responding. "I'll be frank with you," he mumbled at me. "Fact
is, old man, that night--the night Phil Farmer said Susan wanted to see
you--was waiting for you in your study--remember? You promised to rejoin
me shortly and talk things out.... But you didn't come back. Naturally,
I've always supposed since then----"
"You have a scoundrelly imagination!" I exclaimed.
His face, green-pale from loss of sleep, slowly mottled with purplish
stains.
"Years of friendship," he stumbled, thick-voiced, through broken
phrases. "Wouldn't take that from any one else.... Not yourself....
Question of viewpoint, really.... I'd be the last to blame either of
you, if---- However----"
"Maltby," I said, "you're what I never thought you--a common or garden
cad. That's my deliberate opinion. I've nothing more to say to you."
For an instant I supposed he was going to strike me. It is one of the
major disappointments of my life that he did not. My fingers ached for
his throat.
Later, with the undertaker efficiently in charge of all practical
arrangements, and while Susan still hid from us behind her mysterious
veil, I talked things out with Doctor Askew, giving him the whole story
of Susan as clearly and unreservedly as I could. My purpose in doing so
was two-fold. I felt that he must know as much as possible about Susan
before she woke again to what we call reality. What I feared was that
this shock--which had so profoundly and so peculiarly affected
her--might, even after the long and lengthening trance had passed, leave
some mark upon her spirit, perhaps even some permanent cloud upon her
brain. I had read enough of these matters to know that my fear was not
groundless, and I could see that Doctor Askew welcomed my
information--felt as keenly as I did that he might later be called upon
to interpret and deal with some perplexing borderland condition of the
mind. It was as well at least to be prepared. That was my major purpose.
But connected with it was another, more self-regarding. My own vision,
my psychic reel, greatly disturbed me. It was not orthodox. It could not
be explained, for example, as something swiftly fabricated from covert
memories by my unconscious mind, and forced then sharply into
consciousness by some freak of circumstance, some psychic perturbation
or strain.
My vision of the accident itself--of the manner of its occurrence--might
conceivably have been such a fabrication, subconsciously elaborated from
the facts given me by Conlon; not so my vision of its setting. I had
seen in vivid detail the interior of a room which I had never entered
and had never heard described; and every detail thus seen was minutely
accurate, for I had since examined the room and had found nothing in it
unfamiliar, nothing that did not correspond with what my mind's eye had
already noted and remembered. Take merely one instance--the pattern and
color scheme of the Chinese rug beside the _chaise-longue_. As an
amateur in such matters I could easily, in advance of physically looking
at it, have catalogued that rug and have estimated its value to a
collector. How then to account for this astounding clairvoyance? I could
not account for it without widening my whole conception of what was
psychically possible. Seated with Doctor Askew in the room where Susan
lay withdrawn from us, from our normal world of limited concrete
perceptions, I was oppressed as never before by the immensity and
deluding vagueness of the unknown. What were we, we men and women?
Eternal forces, or creatures of an hour? An echo, from days long past
returned to me, Phil's quiet, firm voice demanding--of Maltby, wasn't
it? Yes, yes, of course--demanding of Maltby: "_What is the world, may I
ask? And what is Susan?_"
Doctor Askew cross-questioned me closely as we sat there, a little off
from Susan, our eyes seldom leaving her face. "You must have patience,"
he kept assuring me in the midst of his questioning. "It will be much
better for her to come out of this thing tranquilly, by herself. We're
not really wasting time." When his cross-questioning was over he sat
silent for a long time, biting at his upper lip, tapping one
foot--almost irritably, I thought--on the parquet floor.
"I don't like it," he said finally, in his abrupt way. "I don't like it
because I believe you're telling the truth. If I could only persuade
myself that you are either lying or at least drawing a long bow"--he
gave a little disgusted snort of laughter--"it would be a great relief
to me!"
"Why?"
"Why? Because you're upsetting my scientific convictions. My mind was
all tidied up, everything nicely in order, and now you come raging
through it with this ridiculous tale of a sudden hallucinating
vision--of seeing things that you'd never seen, never heard
described--whose very existence you were completely unaware of! Damn it!
I'd give almost anything to think you a cheerful liar--or self-deceived!
But I can't."
"Still, you must have met with similar cases?"
"Never, as it happens, with one that I couldn't explain away to my own
satisfaction. That's what irritates me now. I can't explain you away,
Mr. Hunt. I believe you had that experience just as you describe it.
Well, then, if you had--what follows?" He pulled for a moment or two at
a stubby end of red mustache.
"What does?" I suggested.
"One of three things," he replied, "all equally impossible. Either your
vision--to call it that--was first recorded in the mind of another
living person and transferred thence to yours--or it was not. If it
wasn't, then it came direct from God or the devil and was purely
miraculous! With your kind permission, we'll rule that out. But if it
was first recorded in the mind of another living person, then we're
forced to accept telepathy--complete thought transference from a
distance--accept it as a fact. I never have so accepted it, and hate
like hell to do it now! And even if I could bring myself to accept it,
my troubles have only begun. From whose mind was this exact vision of
the accident to Mrs. Hunt transferred to yours? So far as I can see, the
detailed facts of it could have been registered in the minds of only two
persons--Miss Blake and your wife. Isn't that so?"