As a matter of fact, Waghorn would not be in a trance at all, but perfectly conscious, extracting, as he sat quiescent and with closed eyes, the knowledge, remembered or even forgotten, that lurked in the mind of his sitter, and bringing it out in the speech of Mentu, the Egyptian control, or of the lost friend or relative about whom inquiry was being made. Fraudulent also, as purporting to come from the intelligence of discarnate spirits, were the pieces of information he gave as to the conditions under which those who had “passed over” still lived, and it was here that he chiefly brought consolation to the credulous, for he represented the dead as happy and busy, and full of spiritual activities. This information, to speak frankly, he obtained entirely from his own conscious mind. He made it up, and we cannot really find an excuse for him in the undoubted fact that he sincerely believed in the general truth of all he said when he spoke of the survival of individual personality.
Finally, deeply dyed with fraud, and that in crude, garish colours, were the spirit-rappings, the playing of musical boxes, the appearance of materialized spirits, the smell of incense that heralded Cardinal Newman, all that bag of conjuring tricks, in fact, which disgraces and makes a laughing-stock of the impostors who profess to be able to bring the seen world into connection with the unseen world. But to do Waghorn justice, he did not often employ those crude contrivances, for his telepathic and thought-reading gifts were far more convincing to his sitters. Occasionally, however, his powers in this line used to fail him, and then, it must be confessed, he presented his Egyptian control with every trapping and circumstance of degrading device.
Such was the general scheme of procedure when Richard Waghorn, with his sister as accomplice in case mechanical tricks were necessary, undertook to reveal the spirit world to the material world. They were a pleasant, handsome pair of young people, gifted with a manner that, if anything, disarmed suspicion too much, and while futile old gentlemen found it quite agreeable to sit in the dark holding Julia’s firm, cool hand, similarly constituted old ladies were the recipients of thrilling emotions when they held Richard’s, the touch of which, they declared, was strangely electric. There they sat while Richard, breathing deeply and moaning in his simulated trance, was the mouthpiece of Mentu and told them things which, but for his indubitable gift of thought-reading, it was impossible for him to know; or, if the power was not coming through properly, they listened, hardly less thrilled, to spirit-rappings and musical boxes and unverifiable information about the conditions of life where the mortal coil hampers no longer. It was all very interesting and soothing and edifying. And then one day there occurred an irruption of something wholly unexpected and inexplicable.
Brother and sister were dining quietly after a busy, but unsatisfactory day when the tinkling summons came from the telephone, and Richard found that a loud voice, belonging, so it said, to Mrs. Gardner, wanted to arrange a sitting alone for next day. No address was given, but he made an appointment for half-past two, and without much enthusiasm went back to his dinner.
“A stranger,” he said to his sister, “with no address and no reference or introduction. I hope I shall be in better form to-morrow. There was nothing but rappings and music to-day. They are boring, and also they are dangerous, for one may be detected at any time. And I got an infernal blow on my knuckles from that new electric tapper.”
Julia laughed.
“I know. I heard it,” she said. “There was quite a wrong noise in one of the taps as we were spelling out ‘silver wing.’”
He lit his cigarette, frowning at the smoke.
“That’s the worst of my profession,” he said. “On some days I can get right inside the mind of the sitter, and, as you know, bring out the most surprising information; but on other days—to-day, for instance—and there have been many such lately—there’s a mere blank wall in front of me. I shall lose my position if it happens often; nobody will pay my fees only to hear spirit-rappings and generalities.”
“They’re better than nothing,” said Julia.