Kennedy nodded. “Have you the pill-box and the prescription?”
“I have,” replied Dr. Hanson, placing them on the table.
Kennedy scrutinised them sharply. “I shall need these,” he said. “Of course you understand I will take very good care of them. Is there anything else of importance?”
“Really, I don't know,” said the physician dubiously. “It's rather out of my province, but perhaps you would think it important. It's mighty uncanny anyhow. Henry Vandam, as you doubtless know, was much more deeply interested in the work of this medium than was his wife. Perhaps Mrs. Vandam was a bit jealous—I don't know. But she, too, had an interest in spiritualism, though he was much more deeply influenced by Mrs. Popper than she.
“Here's the strange part of it. The old man believes so thoroughly in rappings and materialisations that he constantly keeps a notebook in his pocket in which he records all the materialisations he thinks he sees and the rappings he hears, along with the time and place. Now it so happened that on the night Mrs. Vandam was taken ill, he had retired—I believe in another part of the house, where he has a regular seance-room. According to his story, he was awakened from a profound sleep by a series of rappings. As was his custom, he noted the time at which they occurred. Something made him uneasy, and he said to his 'control'—at least this is his story:
“'John, is it about Mary?'
“Three raps answered 'yes,' the usual code.
“'What is the matter? Is she ill?'
“The three answering raps were so vigorous that he sprang out of bed and called for his wife's maid. The maid replied that Mrs. Vandam had not gone to bed yet, but that there was a light in the library and she would go to her mistress immediately. The next moment the house was awakened by the screams of the maid calling for help, that Mrs. Vandam was dying.
“That was three nights ago. On each of the two succeeding nights Henry Vandam says he has been awakened at precisely the same hour by a rapping, and on each night his 'control' has given him a message from his dead wife. As a man of science, I attribute the whole thing to an overwrought imagination. The original rappings may have been a mere coincidence with the fact of the condition of Mrs. Vandam. However, I give this to you for what it is worth.”