CHAPTER V
THE THIRD SITTING
"Isn't it an extraordinary thing," Julian said, on the following evening, "that if you meet a man once in London you keep knocking up against him day after day? While, if—"
"You don't meet him, you don't."
"No. I mean that if you don't happen to be introduced to him, you probably never set eyes on him at all."
"I know. But whom have you met to-day?"
"Marr again."
"That's odd. He is beginning to haunt you."
"I met him at my club. He has just been elected a member."
"Did he make any more inquiries into our sittings?"
"Rather. He talked of nothing else. He's an extraordinary fellow, extraordinary."
"Why? What is he like?"
"In appearance? Oh, the sort of chap little pink women call Satanic; white complexion showing blue where he shaves, big dark eyes rather sunken, black hair, tall, very thin and quiet. Very well dressed. He is that uncanny kind of a man who has a silent manner and a noisy expression. You know what I mean?"
"Yes, perfectly."
"I think he's very morbid. He never reads the evening papers."
"That proves it absolutely. Does he smoke?"
"Always. I found him in the smoking-room. He showed the most persistent interest in our proceedings, Val. I couldn't get him to talk of anything else, so at last I told him exactly what had happened."
"Did you tell him that we began to sit last night in a different room?"
"Yes. That was curious. Directly I said it he began making minute inquiries as to what the room was like, how the furniture was placed, even what pictures hung on the walls."
"The pictures!"
"Yes. I described them."
"All of them?"
"No, one or two; that favorite of yours, 'The Merciful Knight,' the
Turner, those girls of Solomon's with the man playing to them, and—yes,
I think those were all."
"Oh!"
"He said, 'You made a great mistake in changing your venue to that room, a great mistake.' Then I explained how we moved back to the tentroom in the middle of the sitting, and all about Rip."
"Did he make any remark?"
"One that struck me as very quaint, 'You are en route.'"
"Enigmatic again. He was playing the wizard."
"He spoke very gravely."
"Of course. Great gravity is part of the business."
"Afterwards he said, 'Turn that dog out next time.'"
"And that was all?"
"I think so."
Valentine sat musing. Presently he said:
"I should rather like to meet this Marr."
"Oh, I don't think—I fancy—"
"Well?"
"I'd as soon you didn't."
"Why?"
"I don't think you'd get on. You wouldn't like him."
"For what reason?"
"I don't know. I've a notion he's something exceptional in the way of a blackguard. Perhaps I am wrong. I haven't an idea what sort of a reputation he has. But he is black, Valentine, not at all your colour. Oh! and, by the way, he doesn't want to meet you."
"How charming of him!"
"I had half suggested it, I don't know why, and he said, 'Thanks! Thanks! Chance will bring us together later on if we ought to meet.' And now I am glad he wasn't keen. Shall we begin? Put Rip into your bedroom, as he advised. Besides, I can't stand his barking."
Valentine carried the little dog away. When he came back he shut the tentroom door and was about to draw the curtain over it. But Julian stopped him.
"No, don't," Julian said.
"Why not?"
"I would rather you didn't. I hate that curtain. If I were you I would have it taken down altogether."
Valentine looked at him in surprise. He had uttered the words with an energy almost violent. But even as Valentine looked Julian switched off the electric light and the leaping darkness hid his face.
"Come now. Business! Business!" he cried.
And again they sat with their hands loosely on the table, not touching each other.
Valentine felt that Julian was being less frank with him than usual. Perhaps for this reason he was immediately conscious that they were not so much in sympathy as on the two former occasions of their sittings. Or there might have been some other reason which he could not identify. It is certain that he gradually became acutely aware of a stifling sense of constraint, which he believed to be greatly intensified by the surrounding darkness and silence. He wondered if Julian was conscious of it also, and at moments longed to ask. But something held him back, that curious something which we all feel at times like a strong hand laid upon us. He made up his mind that this discomfort of his soul, unreasonably considerable though it was, must be due solely to Julian's abrupt demeanour and obvious desire to check his curiosity about the drawing of the curtain. But, as the moments ran by, his sense of uneasiness assumed such fantastic proportions that he began to cast about for some more definite, more concrete, cause. At one instant he found it in the condition of his health. The day had been damp and dreary, and he had suffered from neuralgia. Doubtless the pain had acted upon his nervous system, and was accountable for his present and perpetually increasing anxiety. A little later he was fain to dismiss this supposition as untenable. His sense of constraint was changing into a positive dread, and not at all of Julian, around whom he had believed that his thoughts were in flight. Something, he knew not at all what, interposed between him and Julian, and so definitely that Valentine felt as if he could have fixed the exact moment in which the interposition had taken place, as one can fix the exact moment in which a person enters a room where one is sitting. And the interposition was one of great horror,—entirely malignant, Valentine believed.
He had an impulse to spring up from the table, to turn on the light, and to say, "Let us make an end of this jugglery!" Yet he sat still, wondering why he did so. A curiosity walked in his mind, pacing about till he could almost fancy he heard its footsteps. He sat, then, as one awaiting an arrival, that has been heralded in some way, by a telegram, a message, a carrier-pigeon flown in at an open window. But the herald, too, was horrible. What then would follow it? What was coming? Valentine felt that he began to understand Marr's queer remark, "You are en route." At the first sitting he had felt a very vague suggestion of immoderate possibilities, made possibilities by the apparently futile position assumed at a table by himself and Julian. To-night the vague seemed on march towards the definite. Fancy was surely moving towards fact.
With his eyes wide open Valentine gazed in the direction of Julian, sitting invisible opposite to him. He wondered how Julian was feeling, what he was thinking. And then he remembered that strange saying of Marr's, that thoughts could take form, materialize. What would he give to witness that monstrous procession of embodied brain-actions trooping from the mind of his friend! He imagined them small, spare, phantom-like things, fringed with fire, as weapon against the darkness, silent-footed as spirits, moving with a level impetus, as pale ghosts treading a sea, onward to the vast world of clashing minds, to which we carelessly cast out our thoughts as a man who shoots rubbish into a cart. The vagrant fancies danced along with attenuated steps and tiny, whimsical gestures of fairies, fluttering their flame-veined wings. The sad thoughts moved slowly with drooped heads and monotonous hands, and tears fell forever about their feet. The thoughts that were evil—and Julian had acknowledged them many, though combatted—were endowed with a strangely sinister gait, like the gait of those modern sinners who express, ignorantly, in their motions the hidden deeds their tongues decline to speak. The wayward thoughts had faces like women, who kiss and frown within the limits of an hour. On the cheeks of the libertine thoughts a rosy cloud of rouge shone softly, and their haggard eyes were brightened by a cunning pigment. And the noble thoughts, grand in gesture, godlike in bearing, did not pass them by, but spoke to them serene words, and sought to bring them out from their degradation. And there was no music in this imagined procession which Valentine longed to see. All was silent as from the gulf of Julian's mind the inhabitants stole furtively to do their mission. Yes, Valentine knew to-night that he should feel no wonder if thought took form, if a disembodied voice spoke, or a detached hand moved into ripples of the air. Only he was irritated and alarmed by the abiding sense of some surrounding danger, which stayed with him, which he fought against in vain. His common sense had not deserted him. On the contrary, it was argumentative, cogent in explanation and in rebuke. It strove to sneer his distress down with stinging epithets, and shot arrows of laughter against his aimless fears. But the combat was, nevertheless, tamely unequal. Common sense was routed by this enigmatic enemy, and at length Valentine's spirits became so violently perturbed that he could keep silence no longer.
"Julian," he said, with a pressure of chained alarm in his voice,
"Julian!"
"Yes," Julian replied, tensely.
"Anything wrong with you?"
"No, no. Or with you?"
"Nothing definite."
"What then?"
"I will confess to you that to-night I feel—I feel, well, horribly afraid."
"Of what?"
"I have no idea. The feeling is totally unreasonable. That gives it an inexplicable horror."
"Ah! then that is why you joined your left hand with my right five minutes ago. I wondered why you did it."
"I! Joined hands!"
"Yes."
"I haven't moved my hand."
"My dear Val! How is it holding mine then?"
"Don't be absurd, Julian; my hand is not near yours. Both my hands are just where they were when we sat down, on my side of the table."
"Just where they were! Your little finger has been tightly linked in mine for the last five minutes. You know that as well as I do."
"Nonsense!"
"But it is linked now while I am speaking."
"I tell you it isn't."
"I'll soon let you know it too. There! Ah! no wonder you have snatched it away. You forget that my muscles are like steel, and that I can pinch as a gin pinches a rabbit's leg. I say, I didn't really hurt you, did I? It was only a joke to stop your little game."
"I tell you," Valentine said, almost angrily, "your hand has never once touched mine, nor mine yours."
His accent of irritable sincerity appeared suddenly to carry conviction to the mind of Julian, for he sprang violently up from the table, and cried, in the darkness:
"Then who the devil's in the room with us?"
Valentine also, convinced that Julian had not been joking, was appalled. He switched on the light, and saw Julian standing opposite to him, looking very white. They both threw a rapid glance upon the room, whose dull green draperies returned their inquiry with the complete indifference of artistic inanimation.
"Who the devil's got in here?" Julian repeated, with the savage accent of extreme uneasiness.
"Nobody," Valentine replied. "You know the thing's impossible."
"Impossible or not, somebody has found means to get in."
Valentine shook his head.
"Then you were lying?"
"Julian, what are you saying? Don't go too far."
"Either you were, or else a man has been sitting at that table between us, and I have held his hand, the hand of some stranger. Ouf!"
He shook his broad shoulders in an irrepressible shudder.
"I was not lying, Julian. I tell you so, and I mean it."
Valentine's eyes met Julian's, and Julian believed him.
"Put your hands on the table again," Julian said.
Valentine obeyed, and Julian laid his beside them, linking one of his little fingers tightly in one of Valentine's, and at the same time shutting his eyes. After a long pause he grew visibly whiter, and hastily unlinked his finger.
"No, damn it, Val, I hadn't hold of your hand. The hand I touched was much harder, and the finger was bigger, thicker. I say, this is ghastly."
Again he shook himself, and cast a searching glance upon the little room.
"Somebody has been in here with us, sitting between us in the dark," he repeated. "Good God, who is it?"
Valentine looked doubtful, but uneasy too.
"Let us go through the rooms," he said.
They took a candle, and, as on the previous night, searched, but in vain. They found no trace of any alien presence in the flat. No book, no ornament, had been moved. No door stood open. There was no sound of any footsteps except their own. When they came to Valentine's bedroom, Rip leaped to greet them, and seemed in excellent spirits. He showed no excitement until he had followed them back into the tentroom. But, arrived there, he suddenly stood still, raised one white paw from the ground, and emitted a long and dreary howl. The young men stared at him, and then at each other.
"Rip knows somebody has been here," Julian said.
Valentine was much more uncomfortably impressed by the demeanour of the dog than by Julian's declaration and subsequent agitation. He had been inclined to attribute the whole affair to a trick of his friend's nerves. But the nervous system of a fox-terrier was surely, under such circumstances as these, more truth-telling than that of a man.
"But the thing is absolutely impossible," he repeated, with some disturbance of manner.
"Is anything that we can't investigate straight away absolutely impossible?"
Valentine did not reply directly.
"Here is a cigarette," he said. "Let us sit down, soothe our nerves, and talk things over calmly and openly. We have not been quite frank with each other about these sittings yet."
Julian accepted Valentine's offer with his usual readiness. The fire was relit with some difficulty. Rip was coaxed into silence.
Presently, as the smoke curled upward with its lazy demeanour, the horror that had hung like a thin vapour in the atmosphere seemed to be dissipated.
"Now I think we are ourselves again, and can be reasonable," Valentine began. "Don't let us be hysterical. Spiritualists always suffer from hysteria."
"The sceptics say, Val."
"And probably they are generally right. Now—yes, do drink some more of that brandy and soda. Now, Julian, do you still believe that a hand held yours just now?"
Julian answered quietly, showing no irritation at the question:
"I simply know it as surely as I know that I am sitting with you at this moment. And,—look here, you may laugh at me as much as you. like,—although I supposed the hand to be yours, until you denied it I had previously felt the most curious sensation."
"Of what?"
"Well, that something was coming, even had actually come, into the room."
Valentine answered nothing to this, so Julian went on.
"I thought it was a trick of the nerves, and determined to drive it away, and I succeeded. And then, just as I was internally laughing at myself, this hand, as if groping about in the dark, was first laid on mine, full on it, Val, and then slid off onto the table and linked its little finger tightly in mine. I, of course, supposed the hand was yours, and this finger was crooked round mine for fully five minutes, I should say. After you spoke, thinking that you were trying to deceive me for a joke, I caught the hand in mine, and pinched it with all my strength until it was forcibly dragged away."
"Strange," Valentine murmured.
"Deucedly strange! and, what's more, diabolically unpleasant."
"I wonder what that fellow, Marr, would say to this."
"Marr! By Jove, is this one of the manifestations which he spoke about so vaguely?"
"It seems like it."
"But describe your sensations. You say you felt horribly afraid. Why was that?"
"I can't tell. That, I think, made part of the horror. There was a sort of definite vagueness, if you can imagine such a seeming contradiction, in my state of mind. But the feeling is really indescribable. That it was more strange and more terrible than anything I have known is certain. I should like to ask Dr. Levillier about all this."
"Levillier—yes. But he would—"
"Be reasonable about it, as he is about everything. Dear, sensible, odd, saintly, emotional, strong-headed, soft-hearted little doctor. He is unique."
They talked on for some time, arriving at no conclusion, until it seemed they had talked the whole matter thoroughly out. Yet Valentine, who was curiously instinctive, had, all the time, a secret knowledge that Julian was keeping something from him, was not being perfectly frank. The conviction pained him. At last Julian got up to go. He stood putting on his overcoat.
"Good-night," he said.
"Good-night, Julian."
"Now—is this to be our last sitting?"
Valentine hesitated.
"What do you wish?" he asked at length.
"What do you?"
"Well, I—yes, I think I would rather it was the last."
Julian caught his hand impulsively.
"So would I. Good-night."
"Good-night."
Julian went out into the hall, got as far as the front door, opened it, then suddenly called out:
"Valentine!"
"Yes."
"Come here for a moment."
Valentine went, and found him standing with his hand on the door, looking flushed and rather excited.
"There is one thing I haven't told you," he began.
"I knew that."
"I guessed you did. The most horrible sensation I have had. During our sitting to-night—don't be vexed—an extraordinary apprehension of—well, of you, came over me. There! Now I have told you."
Valentine was greatly astonished.
"Of me?" he said.
"Yes. There was a moment when the idea that I was alone with you made my blood run cold."
"Good heavens!"
"Do you wish I hadn't told you?"
"No, of course not. But it is so extraordinary, so unnatural."
"It is utterly gone now, thank God. I say, we have resolved that we won't sit again, haven't we?"
"Yes; and what you have just told me makes me hate the whole thing. The game seems a game no longer."
When the door had closed upon Julian, Valentine sat down and wrote a note.
He addressed it to—
"Doctor Hermann Levillier,
"Harley Street, W.,"
and laid it on his writing-table, so that it might be posted early the next morning.