“_Mr. William Ansley.
Dear Sir_:
“_Owing to the fact that at least one member of nearly every
family in this community has been smitten with a peculiar
malady, in some instances fatal, since the death of James
Braddock, and in view of the undeniable evidence that the
corpse of the aforesaid has become a vampire, proven by
certain things which you, in company with two respected and
veracious neighbors witnessed, an indignation meeting was held
today, attended by more than one hundred residents, for the
purpose of discussing ways and means of combating this terrible
menace to the community._
“_Tradition tells us that there are two effective ways for
disposing of a vampire. One is by burning the corpse of the
offender, the other is by burial with a stake driven through
the heart. We have decided on the latter as the more simple and
easily carried out._
“_You are therefore directed to convey the corpse to the
pine grove which is situated a half mile back from the road
on your uncle’s farm, where you will find a grave ready dug,
and six men who will see that the body is properly interred.
You have until eight o’clock this evening to carry out these
instructions._
“_To refuse to do as directed will avail you nothing._ IF YOU
DO NOT BRING THE BODY WE WILL COME AND GET IT. _If you offer
resistance, you do so at your peril, as we are armed, and we
mean business._
“_THE COMMITTEE._
_P. S. No use to try to telephone or send a messenger for help.
Your wires are out of commission and the house is surrounded by
armed sentinels._”
As the professor had predicted, this was indeed a most serious turn of
events. I turned to Mrs. Rhodes.
“Where is the bearer of this letter?” I asked. “Did he wait for a reply?”
“It was given to me by a small boy,” she answered. “He said that if you
wished to reply, to put your letter in the mail-box, and it would be
given to the right party. There was a closed automobile waiting for him
in front of the house, and he ran back to it and was driven away at high
speed.”
“I must dress and go downstairs at once,” I said.
“You must do no such thing,” replied Miss Randall. “The doctor’s orders
are that you must keep perfectly quiet until your ribs heal.”
I heard a swift footfall on the stairs, and a moment later the professor
entered the room, very much excited.
“Two farmers,” he said, “poked shotguns in my face and searched me on the
public highway. That’s what just happened to me!”
“What do you suppose they were after?” I asked.
“They did not make themselves clear on that point, and they didn’t take
anything, so I am at a loss to explain their conduct. They merely stopped
me, felt through my pockets and searched the car; then told me to drive
on.”
“Perhaps this will throw some light on their motive,” I said, handing him
the letter.
As he read it a look of surprise came over his face.
“Ah! It is quite plain, now. These were the armed guards mentioned in the
postscript. It seems incredible that such superstition should prevail
in this enlightened age; however, the evidence is quite too plain to be
questioned. What is to be done?”
“Frankly, I don’t know,” I replied. “We are evidently so well watched
that it would be impossible for anyone to go for help. Of course, they
cannot harm my deceased uncle by driving a stake through the corpse,
but to permit these barbarians to carry out their purpose would be to
desecrate the memory of the best friend I ever had.”
“What are they going to do?” asked Miss Randall in alarm. I handed her
the letter. She read it hastily, then ran downstairs to see if the
telephone was working.
“What would you say if I were to tell you there is a strong possibility
that your uncle’s body is _not_ a corpse; or, in other words, that he is
not _really dead_?” asked the professor.
“I would say that if there is the slightest possibility of that, they
will make a corpse of me before they stage this vampire funeral,” I
replied, starting to dress.
“I am with you in that,” said he, extending his hand, “and now let us
examine the evidence.”
“By all means,” I answered.
“According to the belief of most modern psychologists,” he began,
“every human being is endowed with two minds. One is usually termed the
objective, or conscious mind, the other the subjective, or subconscious
mind. Some call it the subliminal consciousness. The former controls our
waking hours, the latter is dominant when we are asleep.
“You are, no doubt, familiar with the functions and powers of the
objective mind, so we will not discuss them. The powers of the subjective
mind, which are not generally known or recognized, are what chiefly
concern us in this instance.
“My belief that your uncle is not really dead started when I first heard
your story. It was later substantiated by two significant facts. I will
take up the various points in their logical order, and you may judge for
yourself as to whether or not my hypothesis is fully justified.
“First, upon seeing him lying in the casket, you involuntarily exclaimed,
‘He is not dead—only sleeping.’ This apparently absurd statement,
unsubstantiated by objective evidence, was undoubtedly prompted by
your subjective mind. One of the best known powers of the subjective
mind is that of telepathy, the communication of thoughts or ideas from
mind to mind, without the employment of physical means. This message
was apparently impressed so strongly on your subjective mind that you
spoke it aloud, automatically, almost without the subjective knowledge
that you were talking. Assuming that it was a telepathic message, it
must necessarily have been projected by _some other mind_. May we not,
therefore, reasonably suppose that the message came from the subjective
mind of your uncle?
“Then the second message. Was it not plainly from someone who knew you
intimately, someone in dire need? You will recall that, just before you
fell asleep, you seemed to hear the words, ‘_Billy! Save me, Billy._’
“And now, as to the phenomena: I must confess that I was somewhat in
doubt, at first, regarding these. Not that I questioned your veracity
in the least, for no man rushes blindly in front of a moving automobile
without sufficient cause, but the sights which you witnessed were so
striking and unusual that I felt sure they must have been hallucinations.
On second thought, however, I decided it would be quite out of the
ordinary for you and two other men to have the same hallucinations. It
was, therefore, apparent that you had witnessed genuine materialization
phenomena.
“The key to the whole situation, however, lay in the seemingly
insignificant smudge on the book cover. Two years ago your uncle advanced
a theory that materialization phenomena were produced by a substance
which he termed ‘psychoplasm.’ After listening to his argument, I was
convinced that he was right. Since then, we have attended numerous
materialization seances, with the object of securing a sample of this
elusive material for examination. It always disappears instantly when
a bright light is flashed upon it, or when the medium is startled or
alarmed, and our efforts in this direction have always been fruitless.
“Needless to say, when you described the deposit left on the book by
the phantasmic bat, I was intensely interested. Microscopic examination
and analysis show that this substance is something quite different from
anything I have ever encountered. While it is undoubtedly organic, it is
nevertheless remarkably different, in structure and composition, from
anything heretofore classified, either by biologists or chemists. In
short, I am convinced it is that substance which has eluded us for so
long, namely, psychoplasm.
“No doubt you will wonder what bearing this has on the question under
discussion—that is, whether or not your uncle still lives. As far as we
are able to learn, psychoplasm is produced only by, or through, _living_
persons, and in nearly every instance it occurs only when the person
acting as medium is in a state of catalepsy, or suspended animation. As
most of the manifestations took place in the room where your uncle’s body
lay, and as he is the only one in the house likely to be in that state, I
assume that your uncle’s soul still inhabits his body.
“The final point, and by no means the least important, is that in spite
of the time which has elapsed since his alleged death—in spite of that
fact that it lay in a warm room without refrigeration or embalming
fluid—your uncle’s body shows absolutely no sign of decomposition.”
“But how is it possible,” I asked, “for a person in a cataleptic state to
simulate death so completely as to deceive the most competent physicians?”
“How such a thing is possible, I cannot explain, any more than I can tell
you how psychoplasm is generated. The wonderful powers of the subjective
entity are truly amazing. We can only deal with the facts as we find
them. Statistics show that no less than one case a week of suspended
animation is discovered in the United States. There are, no doubt,
hundreds of other cases which are never brought to light. As a usual
thing, nowadays, the doctor no sooner pronounces the patient dead than
the undertaker is summoned. Needless to say, when the arteries have been
drained and the embalming fluid injected, there is absolutely no chance
of the patient coming to life.”
Together, we walked downstairs and entered the room where Uncle Jim
lay. We looked carefully, minutely, for some sign of life, but none was
apparent.
“It is useless,” said the professor, “to employ physical means at this
time. However, I have an experiment to propose, which, if successful, may
prove my theory. As I stated previously, you are, no doubt, subjectively
in mental _enrapport_ with your uncle. Your subjective mind constantly
communicates with his, but you lack the power to elevate the messages to
your objective consciousness. My daughter has cultivated to some extent
the power of automatic writing. You can, no doubt, establish rapport with
her by touch. I will put the questions.”
Miss Randall was called, and upon our explaining to her that we wished to
conduct an experiment in automatic writing, she readily consented. Her
father seated her at the library table, with pencil and paper near her
right hand. He then held a small hand mirror before her, slightly above
the level of her eyes, on which she fixed her gaze.
When she had looked steadily at the mirror for a short time he made a
few hypnotic passes with his hands, whereupon she closed her eyes and
apparently fell into a light sleep. Then, placing the pencil in her
right hand, he told me to be seated beside her, and place my right hand
over her left. We sat thus for perhaps ten minutes, when she began to
write, very slowly at first, then gradually increasing in speed until the
pencil fairly flew over the paper. When the bottom of the sheet had been
reached, a new one was supplied, and this was half covered with writing
before she stopped.
The professor and I examined the resulting manuscript. Something about
it seemed strangely familiar to me. I remembered seeing those words in a
book I had picked up in that same room. On making a comparison, we found
that she had written, word for word, the introduction to my uncle’s book,
“The Reality of Materialization Phenomena.”
“We will now ask some questions,” said the professor.
He took a pencil and paper and made a record of his questions the answers
to which were written by his daughter. I have copied them verbatim, and
present them below.
_Q_: “Who are you that writes?”
_A_: “Ruth.”
_Q_: “By whose direction do you write?”
_A_: “Billy.”
_Q_: “Who directs Billy to direct you to write as you do?”
_A_: “Uncle Jim.”
_Q_: “How are we to know that it is Uncle Jim?”
_A_: “Uncle Jim will give proof.”
_Q_: “If Uncle Jim will tell us something which he knows and we do not
know, but which we can find out, he will have furnished sufficient proof.
What can Uncle Jim tell us?”
_A_: “Remove third book from left top shelf of book case. Shake book and
pressed maple leaf will fall out.”
(The professor removed and shook it as directed, and a pressed maple leaf
fell to the floor.)
_Q_: “What further proof can Uncle Jim give?”
_A_: “Get key from small urn on mantle. Open desk in corner and take
out small ledger. Turn to page sixty and find account of Peoria Grain
Company. Account balanced October first by check for one thousand two
hundred forty-eight dollars and sixty-three cents.”
(Again the professor did as directed, and again the written statement was
corroborated.)
_Q_: “The proof is ample and convincing. Will Uncle Jim tell us where he
is at the present time?”
_A_: “Here in the room.”
_Q_: “What means shall we use to awaken him?”
_A_: “Uncle Jim is recuperating. Does not wish to be awakened.”
_Q_: “But we want Uncle Jim to waken some time. What shall we do?”
_A_: “Let Uncle Jim alone, and he will waken naturally when the time
comes.”
The professor propounded several more queries, to which there were no
answers, so we discontinued the sitting. Miss Randall was awakened by
suggestion.
“We now have conclusive proof that your uncle is alive, and in a
cataleptic state,” said the professor.
“Is there no way to arouse him?” I asked.
“The best thing to do is to let him waken himself, as he directed us
to do in the telepathic message. He is, as he says, recuperating from
his illness and should not be disturbed. You are, perhaps, unaware that
catalepsy, although believed by many people to be a disease, is really
no disease at all. While it is known as a symptom of certain nervous
disorders, it may accompany any form of sickness, or may even be caused
by a mental or physical shock of some sort.
“It can also be induced in hypnotization by suggestion. Do not think
of it as a form of sickness, but, rather, as a very deep sleep, which
permits the patient much needed rest for an overburdened body and mind;
for it is a well-known fact that when catalepsy intervenes in any form of
sickness, death is usually cheated.”
“Would it be dangerous to my uncle’s health if we were to remove him to
his bedroom?” I asked. “It seems to me that a coffin is rather a gruesome
thing for him to convalesce in.”
“Agreed,” said the professor, “and I can see no particular harm in moving
him, provided he is handled very gently. Ruth, will you please have Mrs.
Rhodes make the room ready? Mr. Ansley and I will then carry his uncle
upstairs.”
While Miss Randall was doing her father’s bidding we tried to contrive
a way to outwit the superstitious farmers, who would arrive in a few
minutes if they made good their threat.
My eye fell upon two large oak logs, which young Severs had brought for
the fireplace, and I said:
“Why not weight the casket with these logs and screw the lid down? No
doubt they will carry it out without opening it, and when they are well
on their way we can place my uncle in your car and be out of reach before
they discover the substitution.”
“A capital idea,” said the professor. “We will wrap the logs well so they
will not rattle, and, as the casket is an especially heavy one, they will
be none the wiser until it is opened at the grave.”
I ran upstairs and tore two heavy comforters from my bed, and with these
we soon had the logs well padded. Miss Randall called that the room was
ready. The professor and I carefully lifted my uncle from the casket and
were about to take him from the room, when a gruff voice commanded:
“Schtop!”
A dozen masked men, armed indiscriminately with shotguns, rifles and
revolvers, were standing in the hall. We could hear the stamping of many
more on the porch. I recognized the voice and figure of the leader as
those of Glitch.
“Back in der coffin,” he said, pointing a double-barreled shotgun at me.
“Poot him back, or I blow your tam head off.”
Then several other men came in and menaced us with their weapons.