Illusions and Disillusions
It is a generally accepted belief that of all the remedies for an
aching heart, the most effective is distraction of the mind from the
subject of its affliction. And probably the belief is well founded.
But it usually happens that the sufferer is the last to recognize the
virtues of the remedy, preferring to nurse in solitude a secret grief
and to savour again and yet again the bitterness of the Dead Sea fruit
of sorrow.
So it was with me in these unhappy days. The seclusion of the workshop
gave me the opportunity for long hours of meditation, in which I would
trace and retrace the growth of my love for Jasper, would think with
passionate regret of what might have been, and speculate vaguely upon
the future. So far from seeking distraction in these first days of my
trouble, I kept aloof from my comrades, so far as I could; shut myself
in the workshop, or in my room, or wandered abroad alone, following
the great eastern thoroughfares where I was secure from the chance of
meeting a friend.
But the distractions which I would have avoided came unsought. First,
there was the visit with Peggy to Miss Tallboy-Smith. It was due but a
day or two after my parting with Jasper, and I loathed the thought of
it; but it had to be; for who could say how much it might mean to
Peggy? And as it turned out, I should never have forgiven myself if I
had failed her. I had looked for a rather dull social call flavoured
with porcelain. But it was quite otherwise. Miss Tallboy-Smith had at
length heard of Peggy’s genius and had invited a few specially choice
connoisseurs to meet her, including Mr. Hawkesley--unless he had
invited himself. At any rate, there he was, reverential and admiring,
but yet with a certain air of proprietorship which I noted with
interest and not without approval. It was quite a triumph for Peggy,
and she took it very modestly, though with very natural satisfaction.
To me, however, there was a fly in the ointment, though quite a small
one; for Mr. Hawkesley proposed an exploration of the Wallace
Collection, which Peggy had never seen, and which I felt bound, for
her sake, to agree to. But I looked forward with prospective relief to
the time--not far distant, I suspected--when these two pottery
enthusiasts would be intimate enough to dispense with a chaperon.
Then there came a distraction of another kind. One evening after tea,
Lilith took me apart, and looking at me with some concern, said: “Our
Sibyl has not been herself of late. I hope she is not being worried
about anything.”
“We all have our little troubles, Lilith,” I replied, “and sometimes
we don’t take them so resignedly as we should.”
“No,” she rejoined. “Resignation is easier when the troubles are
someone else’s. But we are very concerned to see you looking so
sad--not only Margaret and I, but all of us. We are all very fond of
you, Sibyl, dear, and any of us would think it a privilege to be of
help to you in any way. You know that, don’t you?”
“I have good reason to. No woman could have found kinder or more
helpful friends than I have in this house.”
“Well,” she said, “friends are for use as well as for companionship.
Don’t forget that, if there is any little service that any of us can
render you.”
I thanked her very warmly, and she then opened a fresh topic.
“Some time ago, Sibyl, we were speaking of psychical experiments, and
I suggested that you might like to see some carried out by my friend,
Mr. Quecks, who is an authority on these subjects. Mr. Quecks was away
from home at the time, on a lecturing tour in Kent; but he is home
again now. I wrote to him about you and have had one or two talks with
him, and he has asked me to invite you to a little demonstration that
he is giving to some friends next Friday evening. Would you care to
come with me?”
I would much rather not have gone, but I knew that a refusal would
disappoint Lilith, who had set her heart on converting me.
Accordingly, I accepted the invitation, and we were arranging details
of the expedition when Peggy joined us. As soon as she heard what was
afoot she was all agog.
“Oh, what fun!” she exclaimed. “You’ll let me come, too, won’t you,
Lilith? I did so enjoy it last time.”
Lilith, however, was by no means eager for her company, for the
Titmouse was a rank unbeliever, and made no secret of it.
“What is the use of your coming, Peggy?” said she. “You don’t believe
in the super-normal. You would only come to scoff.”
“Perhaps I should remain to pray,” rejoined Peggy. “It is no use
preaching to people who are already convinced. And I should just love
it. That Quecks man is so _frightfully_ amusing. He is the funniest
little guffin you ever saw, Sibyl. Won’t you let me come, Lilith?”
“Of course you can come if you really want to,” Lilith replied with
evident reluctance. “But you shouldn’t speak of Mr. Quecks as if he
were a mountebank or a buffoon. He may not be handsome, but he is a
very learned man and very sincere.”
“I beg your pardon, Lilith,” said Peggy. “I won’t call him a guffin
any more. And thank you ever so much for letting me come.”
The arrangements being thus settled, it is only fair to Peggy to say
that she endeavoured, as far as possible, to treat the demonstration
quite seriously. Even in our private conversations she made no further
disparaging references to Mr. Quecks, though I did gather that her
anxiety to be present at the séance was not unconnected with a desire
to keep an eye on him to see that he did not impose on me.
Mr. Quecks’ house was situated in a quiet street off Cromwell Road,
Kensington, and the “demonstration” took place in a large room
intermediate in character between a library and a drawing-room,
lighted by three electric bulbs, all of which were encased in silk
bags, so that the illumination was of a twilight dimness. The visitors
were about a dozen in all, and while we were waiting for the late
arrivals Mr. Quecks made a few observations upon super-normal
phenomena in general.
To me he required no disparagement from Peggy or anyone else, his own
appearance doing all that was necessary in that respect. The first
glance at him impressed me disagreeably; but then he was a manifestly
uncomely man, with a large, bald face and long, greasy black hair,
which was brushed straight back and accumulated in an untidy bush at
the nape of his neck. He spoke unctuously, and his manner was
confident, persuasive, didactic and authoritative, and he gave me the
impression of a man who was accustomed to dealing chiefly with
women--his present audience was composed of them exclusively.
“In interpreting the results of the experiments which we are about to
perform,” he observed, “we have to bear in mind that psychical and
super-normal phenomena, inasmuch as they are not concerned with
material things, are not directly appreciable by the senses. We cannot
see or touch the subliminal self, either our own or that of others.
But neither can we see the electric current or the Hertzian waves. We
know of their existence and properties indirectly, through their
effects. Electricity can be transformed into heat, light or sound, and
these can be perceived by means of the radiator, the electric lamp or
the telephone, which act directly on our senses. So it is with the
hidden subconscious self. Invisible itself, it can be made to produce
effects which are perceptible to the conscious mind through the
senses, and through those effects its own existence is revealed.”
This sounds reasonable enough; but the experiments themselves were
rather disappointing on the whole. Perhaps I expected too much; or
perhaps the preoccupied state of my mind did not allow me to bring to
them sufficient interest or attention. Moreover, Mr. Quecks had an
assistant (I had almost said “confederate”) whose appearance pleased
me no more than his own; a wall-eyed, taciturn woman of about
thirty-five, of the name of Morgan, who acted as the “percipient”--the
word “medium,” I noticed, was not used--and helped to prejudice me
against the experiments.
We began with a demonstration of thought-transference, which I found
dull, tiresome and unconvincing. Probably I was unreasonable; but the
apparent triviality of the proceedings, which resembled a solemn and
unspeakably dull drawing-room game, influenced my judgment. The
percipient, Miss Morgan, being seated, blindfolded, in the middle of
the room, a pack of playing cards and another pack of cards, each of
which bore a single capital letter, were produced. A card was drawn
out at random and held up behind the percipient and in view of
everyone else, including Mr. Quecks, who held the percipient’s hand.
Miss Morgan then guessed the card or the letter. Sometimes she guessed
correctly, sometimes nearly correctly, sometimes quite incorrectly.
The proportion of correct guesses, Mr. Quecks informed us, was vastly
greater than could be accounted for on the law of probabilities. And I
dare say it was. But the exhibition left me cold, as did those of
table-tilting and planchette writing which followed. Even the
“_pendule explorateur_,” which had so impressed me on a previous
occasion, fell flat on this. For, since that rather startling
experience, I had given some thought to the magic pendulum, and
believed that I had found at least a partial explanation of its
powers. Accordingly, when my turn came to try the “autoscope,” I took
the string in my fingers and shut my eyes; and when Mr. Quecks
objected to this, I gazed fixedly at the opposite wall, seeing neither
the pendulum nor the clockwise alphabet. Under these conditions the
pendulum was a complete failure; it would spell nothing. But when I
looked steadily at the pendulum and the letters, the swinging ball
spelled out clearly the word that I chose--Lilith.
I was thus in a decidedly sceptical frame of mind when the next set of
experiments began; and even these produced, at first, no effect on me
other than a slight tendency to yawn. Their object was to demonstrate
the existence of a “psychometric” power or faculty; that is to say, a
power to detect in certain material objects a permanent impression
left by contact with some particular person. Such a faculty, Mr.
Quecks explained to us, was possessed by certain exceptionally
sensitive persons. He had it to some extent himself, but in Miss
Morgan it was developed in a really remarkable degree, as the
experiments which were to follow would convince us.
Hereupon Miss Morgan was once more blindfolded, all the lights but one
were switched off, so that the room was almost in darkness, and the
demonstration began. One of the visitors, at Mr. Quecks’ whispered
request, slipped a ring from her finger and passed it to him. By him
it was handed to Miss Morgan, who solemnly applied it to her forehead.
Then followed an interval of expectant silence, in which I thought I
heard a faint giggle from Peggy Finch, who sat in the row in front of
me.
At length Miss Morgan opened her mouth and spake. It seemed that she
was seeing visions, and these she described in detail. Naturally I was
unable to check them, nor could I judge whether they had any relation
to the ring. The owner of that article stated, at the close of the
experiment, that the visions, as described, corresponded closely to
certain places and events which were known to her and to no one else.
Which seemed conclusive enough; but yet it left me only with a feeling
that the whole proceeding was ridiculous and trivial.
The next experiment was performed with a glove from the hand of
another visitor, and when this was concluded, Mr. Quecks whispered to
a lady in the front row, who whispered to Peggy, who turned to me.
“He wants your handkerchief, Sibyl,” she said in a low whisper.
I took my handkerchief from my pocket and gave it to Peggy, who
squeezed it up into a ball and passed it to the lady in front, who
passed it to Mr. Quecks, who handed it to Miss Morgan; who, in her
turn, applied it to her forehead as if it had been an ice-bag, and
assumed an attitude of intense mental concentration. And again the
sound of a suppressed giggle came from the neighbourhood of the
Titmouse.
Then Miss Morgan began to speak.
“I seem to be passing through the country--swiftly--very swiftly; past
great, wide fields and woods. They are strange-looking woods. The
trees are all in lines--in straight lines… But wait! Are they trees?
No, they can’t be; they are too small. No--they are plants growing up
poles--they must be vines. It is a vineyard--and yet they don’t look
quite like vines. No, no! Of course, I see now; they are hops. It is a
hop-garden. And now I am passing another. Now I have come out on to a
road on the top of a hill. There are hills all round, and in the
hollow there seems to be a town… and I seem to see water in the town…
yes, it is water. It is a river… But I don’t see any ships… only some
red things… Oh, yes! I see; the red things are sails--red sails. I
thought sails were always white.”
She paused; and in the intense silence I leaned forward, listening
eagerly. All my indifference and boredom had vanished. This was quite
a different affair from the card-guessing and planchette-reading. She
had described Maidstone vividly, accurately--or at least so it seemed
to me; Maidstone as it would appear to one approaching the bridge from
the west. Of course it might be mere guessing; but----
“I seem,” Miss Morgan resumed, “to be descending a hill by a broad
street… What is that in front of me? Is it--yes, I see; it is a
bridge. Yes, I see it plainly now. I am coming towards it. But what on
earth is this thing on my left hand? It seems to be a mass of gold…
and yet… and yet it looks like an elephant. That’s ridiculous, of
course. It can’t be… But it certainly looks like gold… and yet it… it
really does look like an elephant! Well, I can make nothing of it. And
now it is gone and I am on the bridge.”
Again she paused, and I sat gazing at her in blank astonishment. There
could now be no question as to the reality of the visions, unless the
whole exhibition was a fraud. The idea of skilful guessing could not
be entertained for a moment. The description did not merely fit
Maidstone; the detail of the golden elephant on the brewery by the
bridge fixed the identity of the place beyond the possibility of
doubt. It was either a genuine--and most amazing--psychical phenomenon
or an outrageous imposture. But an imposture, to which Lilith must
have been a party, was more incredible than the “super-normal” itself.
As these thoughts passed swiftly through my mind, Miss Morgan resumed
her description.
“I am standing on the bridge, but it is beginning to grow indistinct.
By the riverside I can just see a great house, an old, old house,
which seems to stand by the water’s edge, and beyond it trees and a
church tower. Now it is gone and I can see nothing. Is this all?… No;
I see, very, very faintly, a small crowd of people. They seem to be in
a field. And I make out a number of white objects in the field. They
look rather like sheep, but they are very still. Oh! they are not
sheep at all; they are tombstones. And I see now that the people are
all in black and that they are standing round an open grave. It must
be a funeral… Yes; there is the clergyman in his surplice… But it is
beginning to fade… Now I can only just see the dark shapes of the
people… and now they are gone too. This must be all, I think.” She
paused for a few moments and then exclaimed: “No, it isn’t. Something
else is coming. It is very dim, but it looks like a man sitting at a
table. Yes… But I can’t see what he is doing. He is not writing… He
has something in his right hand, and keeps moving it up and down. Oh,
I see now: it is a hammer. He seems to be hammering some bright
object--a piece of metal, I think… Yes, it is quite clear now. But it
isn’t a man at all; it is a woman. I saw her distinctly for a moment,
but she has grown dim again… Now she has gone and I can see nothing… I
think that is all… Yes, that is all. Nothing else seems to come.”
She removed the handkerchief from her forehead and held it out towards
Mr. Quecks, who took it from her and tip-toed round to where I was
sitting.
“Thank you, Mrs. Otway,” he whispered. “It seemed a very successful
experiment; but you can judge better than I can.”
“It was, indeed, most successful,” I replied, as he gave me back my
handkerchief. “I am positively amazed at the detailed accuracy of the
description.”
“You think the correspondence is closer than could be accounted for by
coincidence or chance guessing?” he asked.
“There can be no question of chance,” I replied. “The descriptions
were much too detailed and circumstantial.”
“That is most interesting,” said he. “For there can be no other
explanation but that of genuine psychometric faculty. Miss Morgan is a
stranger to you, and, moreover, she did not know whose handkerchief it
was. The remarkable success of this experiment seems to support Miss
Blake’s estimate of your unusual psychic gifts. You evidently have the
power of imprinting your personality on inanimate objects in an
exceptional degree. I should almost think it likely that you would be
a successful scryer. Have you made any experiments with the crystal?”
“Yes. But they are all complete failures. I could see nothing.”
“That is not unusual in early experiments,” said he. “There is a
difficulty in concentrating. I wonder if you would care to make a
trial now under my guidance. I think I could help you to visualize
some simple scene. Will you try?”
The astonishing success of Miss Morgan’s experiment had revived all my
former curiosity, and I assented readily. Much to Mr. Quecks’
satisfaction. The nature of the new experiment was explained to the
company, and the necessary preparations made. An easy chair was placed
for me in the middle of the room, and the chairs for the others
arranged behind it, so that I should not have my attention distracted
by seeing them. As I passed Lilith on my way to the chair, I greeted
her with a smile, and was a little surprised at the lack of response
on her part. I thought she would be gratified to see me taking so
active a part in the proceedings; but apparently she was not; indeed,
I had never seen her look so ungenial.
When I had taken my seat, Mr. Quecks directed me to lean back and
adopt a position of complete physical rest. A black, velvet cushion
was then placed in my lap and on the cushion was laid the crystal
globe, itself almost black in the dim twilight save for a single spark
where it reflected the light of the one electric lamp.
“You will look fixedly at the bright spot of light,” said Mr. Quecks,
who had seated himself beside me; “concentrate your attention on it
and think of nothing else. Don’t let your mind wander, and don’t move
your eyes. Think of the bright spot and look at it. Soon a mist will
come before your eyes; then you will feel a sort of drowsiness. You
will grow more and more drowsy, but your eyes will keep open and you
will still see the mist. You are seeing it now” (this was quite
correct); “it grows denser; now you are beginning to feel drowsy--just
a little drowsy--but your eyes are wide open; still you are getting
drowsy--rather more drowsy----”
He seemed to repeat these words over and over and over again like a
sort of chant; and his voice, which had been at first soft and
confidential, took on a peculiar sing-song quality, and at the same
time began to grow more and more distant until it came to me thin and
small like the voices that are borne from far-away ships on a calm day
across the water of a quiet anchorage. And, meanwhile, a strange
somnolence fell upon me. I felt as if I were in a dream. Yet my eyes
were wide open, and before them floated the mist, out of which shone
the single spark of light. And the little, thin voice went on chanting
far away, but I could no longer make out what it said. Nor was I
attending to it. I was gazing into the mist at the tiny spark--gazing
fixedly, unwinkingly, without effort.
Presently the mist seemed to clear a little, and the spot of light
began to grow larger. Now it looked like a hole in the shutter of a
dark room; and now it was as though I were looking through an opera
glass or a telescope; but I could make out nothing save a confused
blur of light, in the middle of which was a vague, dark shape. But
still the area of light grew larger, and now I could see that there
were other shapes, all dim, vague and shadowy. Then in an instant it
cleared up, as a magic-lantern picture sharpens when the lens is
focussed. The dark shape was Mr. Otway. He stood, stooping forward,
gazing at something on the floor--something that lay by the fireplace,
motionless, with upturned waxen face. It was horribly distinct. I
could see my father’s face settling into the rigidity of death; I
could see the crimson streak on his temple; I could even see the
sparkle of the silver knob on the stick that Mr. Otway grasped.
The vision lasted, as it seemed, but for a few seconds. Then it grew
dim and confused and quickly faded away into blank darkness; and I
found myself sitting up in the chair, wide awake, but bewildered and a
little frightened. The lights were full on, and the visitors were all
gathered around my chair gazing at me with a very odd intentness.
“Did you see anything in the crystal?” Mr. Quecks asked, suavely.
“Yes,” I answered, not quite so suavely. “How long have I been
asleep?”
Mr. Quecks looked at his watch. “Just five and twenty minutes,” he
replied.
I got up from the chair, and, addressing Peggy, who was looking at me
a little anxiously, asked: “What has been happening, Peggy? Have I
been talking nonsense?”
“No,” she answered. “You’ve been asleep, and you’ve been guessing
cards and doing most extraordinary sums--multiplying and dividing
fractions and all sorts of things. That’s all. But,” she added in a
lower tone, “he’d no business to hypnotize you without your
permission. You didn’t give him permission, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” I replied.
At this moment Lilith came up to us and put the same question.
“No,” I answered. “I didn’t understand that I was to be hypnotised.”
“I thought not,” said she in a tone of evident vexation. “It doesn’t
happen to matter as things have turned out, but it was quite improper.
I shall speak to Mr. Quecks about it when you are gone.”
“Aren’t you coming with us, then?” asked Peggy.
“No,” replied Lilith. “I have some matters to talk over with him, so I
must stay a little while; but I shall follow you in about half an
hour.”
Shortly after this the meeting broke up, and Peggy and I took our
departure. As we sat in the train, I tried to extract from my
companion some details of what had happened, but I found her curiously
unwilling to pursue the topic. I gathered, however, that, as soon as
the hypnotic trance was completely established, Mr. Quecks suggested
to me that I should have a distinct vision of some scene that I had
witnessed “in the old town that Miss Morgan had seen and shortly
before the funeral that she had described.” Then, after an interval,
he had put a number of problems in multiplication and division of
large numbers and fractions, which I had solved with extraordinary
ease and rapidity. As to the nature of my vision, Peggy displayed no
interest, but turned the conversation on to subjects quite unconnected
with Mr. Quecks or psychical science.
When we arrived home she followed me to my room and suggested that we
should wait there for Lilith, which was what I had intended to do. And
here again she showed a marked tendency to avoid the subject of Mr.
Quecks and his experiments. But, as she sat in my chair gossiping, I
caught her eye, from time to time, travelling almost furtively towards
the clock on the mantelpiece, and I wondered if she was feeling
anxious about Lilith, who had to make her way alone through the rather
unsavoury neighbourhood of Ratcliff. Whatever she was feeling,
however, she kept up a flow of conversation--which was, itself, a
rather unusual phenomenon--and presently grew quite confidential about
herself--which was more unusual still. It was clear that her
friendship with Mr. Hawkesley was now quite firmly established, and
they evidently saw a good deal of one another--but this I knew
already. And it was clear that their sympathy in tastes was running
parallel to a very strong liking of a more personal kind.
After a pause in this confidential gossip, Peggy suddenly looked down
a little shyly, and, turning very pink, asked, hesitatingly:
“Sibyl, dear, you haven’t quarrelled with Mr. Davenant, have you?”
“Quarrelled, Peggy!” I exclaimed; “of course I haven’t. Have we ever
struck you as quarrelsome people?”
“No, indeed,” she replied. “But you don’t seem to have seen much of
one another lately.”
“No; I haven’t seen Mr. Davenant for quite a long time,” I said.
She was silent for a while, and I noticed that her cheeks were growing
more and more pink.
“What is my little chameleon turning that colour for?” I asked.
She looked up at me with a shy smile. “Sibyl,” she said, “don’t think
me inquisitive or impertinent. I am your friend, you know, and we are
fond of one another, aren’t we?”
“We are the very best of friends, Peggy, dear, so you needn’t mind
asking me anything that you want to know.”
“Well, then, Sibyl; why don’t you and Mr. Davenant marry? Anyone can
see how fond he is of you, and I’m sure you care for him an awful lot,
don’t you, now?”
“My Titmouse is becoming an expert authority on these matters,” said
I, thereby converting poor Peggy to the semblance of a corn-poppy.
“Perhaps I am,” she admitted, defiantly. “But why don’t you marry him,
Sibyl?”
“My dear Peggy,” said I, “there is a very substantial reason. Its name
is Mr. Otway.”
“Sibyl!” gasped Peggy. “I thought you were a widow!”
I shook my head. “No, Peggy. I am a widow in effect, but a married
woman by law. I have a husband who is no husband; whom I married in
error, whom I have never lived with and could never think of living
with, but whom I can never get rid of. That is the position.”
She flung her arms around my neck, and laid her cheek to mine.
“My poor, dear Sibyl,” she exclaimed. “How dreadful for you! I am so
frightfully sorry, dear. And is there no end to this?”
“There is death,” said I. “That is all. And that is why I am not
seeing much of Mr. Davenant nowadays.”
“It is an awful thing, Sibyl,” said she. “You and Mr. Davenant could
make one another so perfectly happy. And I don’t see why you
shouldn’t, for that matter.”
“Why, how could we, Peggy?”
Again she blushed scarlet, and with a defiant glance at me, replied:
“I wouldn’t have my whole life wrecked. I should just go off with him,
husband or no husband.”
“You dreadful little reprobate. And what do you suppose the world
would say about you?”
“It could say what it liked so long as I’d got the man I wanted. But
it wouldn’t really say anything. No one with any sense would think a
penny the worse of me. Nor would they of you. Everyone would say that
you had done the right thing, seeing that you had no choice. You
couldn’t be expected to be bound for life to a dummy husband.”
At this moment I rose from my chair, and going over to the
dressing-table, lit a candle. Then I put my hand in my pocket and drew
out an unaddressed envelope and a piece of pencil. With the latter I
wrote on the envelope my signature and the words “ten minutes to
eleven.” The whole proceeding seemed quite automatic. I did not know
why I was doing it. I had not known that either the envelope or the
pencil was in my pocket, for I had not put them there. But I carried
out the train of action almost unconsciously and quite without
surprise.
When I had written on the envelope, I opened it and drew out a piece
of paper. On the paper was some writing in an unfamiliar hand. I held
the paper near the candle and read as follows:
“At ten minutes to eleven you will light a candle, take this envelope
and a pencil from your pocket; you will write on the envelope your
signature and the time. Then you will open the envelope and read this
message.”
I stood for some seconds gazing at the paper in utter amazement. Then
I looked round quickly at the clock. It was ten minutes to eleven.
From the clock my glance turned to Peggy, who was sitting watching me
with a very uncomfortable expression.
“Do you know anything about this, Peggy?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “That Quecks man told you to do it. He wrote the
message and put the envelope and pencil in your pocket when you were
in a deep sleep. He spoke the message into your ear, and, after about
a minute, told you to wake up, and you woke up immediately. It was
like his impudence to perform his beastly experiments without getting
your permission first.”
“It was. But the thing is rather uncanny. I don’t like it at all.”
“There’s nothing in it,” said Peggy, though she, too, was evidently
not pleasantly impressed. “It’s what they call post-hypnotic
suggestion. It isn’t in any way super-natural. The doctors know all
about it.”
“Still,” said I, “it is a very strange affair. There is something
extremely eerie in finding oneself turned into an unthinking automaton
worked by somebody else’s will. And some of the other experiments were
rather startling: Miss Morgan’s visions for instance.”
“Mightn’t they have been just clever guesses?”
“No, Peggy. That is quite impossible. Her descriptions applied to my
case in detail and were correct every time. You heard her describe the
view from Maidstone Bridge?”
“Yes. And I recognised it from that water-colour over your
mantelpiece.”
“Well, don’t you think it very wonderful and incomprehensible?”
“No, I don’t,” said Peggy. “How do you suppose she did it?”
“I can only imagine that some influence that I don’t understand passed
to her from my handkerchief.”
“Then you imagine wrong,” said the Titmouse. “Your handkerchief was in
my pocket all the time. It was my handkerchief that she was smelling
at. And her descriptions didn’t fit me the least little bit. I don’t
hammer my pottery, you know.”
“But I don’t understand. You passed her my handkerchief, didn’t you?”
“No; I passed her mine. You see, I’d seen this handkerchief trick
before and I had mine ready, rolled up into a ball in my hand. So it
was quite easy to make the exchange. But we may as well change back
now.”
She took a handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to me; and when
I had identified it as my own, I produced hers and restored it to her.
“You are a wicked little baggage, Peggy,” said I, “though I must admit
that the ruse was quite a fair one. But still, I don’t quite see how
it was done? It was evidently an imposture. But how was it worked? How
did she get the information?”
“Why, she got it from Mr. Quecks, and he got it from Lilith.”
“You surely don’t suggest that Lilith was a party to this fraud?”
“Of course I don’t,” she replied, indignantly. “Lilith is a lady to
the tips of her fingers. That’s just where it is. She would never
suspect. But we know that she wrote to Quecks about you, and she has
talked to him about you, and no doubt he has pumped out all that she
knows about you. Then you will remember that he has just come back
from a tour in Kent--he is almost certain to have been to
Maidstone--and there are such things as picture postcards. There is no
mystery as to how it was done; but I do wonder that he was such a fool
as to do it before Lilith. I suspect she stayed behind to tell him
what she thought of him.”
As we were speaking, Lilith came up the stairs, and I ran out to
intercept her and bring her in.
“You needn’t have waited up for me,” said she, “though I am glad you
have, for I want to apologise for Mr. Quecks’ very improper
behaviour.”
“Don’t think any more about it, Lilith,” said I. “It didn’t do any
harm, and it has enabled Peggy and me to have a little private séance
to ourselves.”
“Did the post-hypnotic experiment work correctly?”
“Perfectly--and most uncannily.”
“Then,” said Lilith, “you have gained by that amount of experience. As
to the rest of Mr. Quecks’ experiments--well, Sibyl, I am afraid we
must consider them on the plane of public entertainment rather than on
that of genuine research. But it is getting late. We had better go to
bed now and talk things over to-morrow.”
This advice was forthwith acted on, as to its first half; and if I
owed Mr. Quecks a grudge for trying to impose on me, I should have
been grateful to him for giving me something to think about other than
my own griefs and entanglements.