The change in kinship, and its novelty, staggered me somewhat; clearly
they manage things differently in the 'Summer-land.' However, I mastered
my emotion. 'And now,' I said, 'for the great question,' and was going
hastily to my table to write it. 'Stop,' said the Medium, 'you're too
excited to ask that question now. Put some other questions first. Then
when you are calmer put the important question.' (A clever stroke! He
did not know enough of me or of Marie to answer _anything_ definitely--a
few intermediate questions might furnish him with many a clue.) 'But, my
dear sir,' I cried, 'what _can_ I ask about? I have but one thought in
my mind; _that_ engulfs all others. If I don't ask that, I shall have to
ask Marie if she minds this pouring rain, or some twaddle about the
weather.' 'Well, well, you'd better ask it then, and get it off your
mind, and we'll see how far Marie can answer it.' (Here let me recall
that stanza in Sister Belle's communication wherein she says:
"My form was sold to doctors three
And you have all that's left of me," etc.)
I sat down at my table and wrote: 'Is it really true that Sister Belle's
body was sold to three doctors?' I folded it down, carried it to the
Medium's table, watched him gum it, and still remained standing at his
table, but he immediately and peremptorily waved me to my seat. Again
were his hands and my strip of paper, with its _freshly gummed_ fold,
completely hidden from sight, behind the row of books. Again the
Medium's arms moved. He turned to the window and hastily pulled down the
shade. This puzzled me. There was no sunshine to be excluded, it was
raining fast outside, the day was unusually dark, and he needed all the
light he could get. I turned and looked out of my window, and there in
the house just across the narrow street, at a window on a level with
ours, and commanding a full view of the Medium's table, sat a woman
sewing, with another, I think, standing by her. 'Bravo!' I thought, 'are
not the four Cardinal virtues, Temperance, Justice, _Prudence_ and
Fortitude?' and then resumed my watch inside. Dr. Mansfield finished
writing, and then held up the slip as though for a final revision before
handing it to me. A toothpick which he had in his mouth worked
energetically from side to side, and he gravely shook his head as in
perplexity. 'I don't like this,' he ejaculated at last, 'I don't want to
give it to you. There'll be trouble here. It's very serious. Better let
me tear it up.' 'Let me see it,' I cried, 'I promise you I'll be calm,'
and I took the strip from his fingers and read:
'Dear Brother--I fear such was the case--but--I could not say who--I
have consulted Dr. Hare--and the far famed Benja Rush, and they agree
that the body is not in the earth--I fear darling Belle's body--is in
process of being--wired. Marie St. Clair.'
The last word was not, I thought, quite legible, so I appealed to the
Medium, and when he solemnly said 'wired,' the utterance with which I
greeted it he probably thought was a groan, and, indeed, from the
borderland of laughter, I did try to push it over into the land of
tears, as hard as I could.
My third question immediately followed: "Can you give me any information
as to where even a portion of the body is?" Again I was waved to my
seat, again my strip of paper and the hands were concealed, again the
arms were nervously moved. This answer I awaited with not a little
anxiety. Surely, surely, Marie St. Clair and Sister Belle would remember
that their joint skull was in my library. They had told me so, only a
few weeks before, and as that skull was known to be fifty or sixty years
old, and their united memory of it had lasted throughout those long
years, surely that memory would not desert them now. And Dr. 'Benja'
Rush, who had recently greeted me as 'townsman,' he was present and
surely he would come to the rescue of Spiritualism, and gladly seize the
chance to settle the question which he had once discussed with Combe,
and Gall, and Spurzheim by bringing forward the frail Marie and the
golden-haired, black-eyed Belle as tenants in common (and uncommon) of
the same skull. Moreover, I thought, are there not to be found in
Anatomical Museums skeletons of infants with one body and two heads? Why
may not this have been an instance of one head and two bodies? To be
sure, one of the bodies lived in Ohio and the other in Massachusetts,
but then when we have once started on a journey through the marvels of
Spiritualism, as portrayed by these four Mediums, what does such a
trifle as this amount to? I had, I reflected, in all seriousness, taken
no single step in the investigation of these Mediums that was not fully
authorized by the explicit statements received from the Mediums
themselves. I had accepted as truth what they told me was truth. If
Spiritualism is hereby wounded, it is wounded in the house of its own
disciples.
At last my answer came: 'I am not allowed to divulge what _I_
think--much less what I know--it would be productive of more harm than
good--let them have it--it is but earth at best--they have not got _our_
precious Belle--she is safe in the Haven of Eternal repose--_I_ would
not make any noise about it--but let it pass--as a discovery of it would
give you pain rather than otherwise--Belle says let it pass--the
_triune_ that have it bought it without knowing whose it was, and such
care as little as they know.