“You are here not as our friend but as our enemy. If you was to prove fraud it would be a personal triumph for you—see? Therefore I, for one, says as you should be searched.”
“Do you mean to insinuate, sir, that I am capable of cheating?” trumpeted Challenger.
“Well, Professor, we are all accused of it in turn,” said Mailey smiling. “We all feel as indignant as you are at first, but after a time you get used to it. I’ve been called a liar, a lunatic—goodness knows what. What does it matter?”
“It is a monstrous proposition,” said Challenger, glaring all round him.
“Well, sir,” said Ogilvy, who was a particularly pertinacious Scot. “Of course, it is open to you to walk out of the room and leave us. But if you sit, you must sit under what we consider to be scientific conditions. It is not scientific that a man who is known to be bitterly hostile to the movement should sit with us in the dark with no check as to what he may have in his pockets.”
“Come, come!” cried Malone. “Surely we can trust to the honour of Professor Challenger.”
“That’s all very well,” said Bolsover. “I did not observe that Professor Challenger trusted so very much to the honour of Mr. and Mrs. Linden.”
“We have cause to be careful,” said Ogilvy. “I can assure you that there are frauds practised on mediums just as there are frauds practised by mediums. I could give you plenty of examples. No, sir, you will have to be searched.”
“It won’t take a minute,” said Lord Roxton. “What I mean young Malone here and I could give you a once over in no time.”
“Quite so, come on!” said Malone.