“What? Are you a fraud, Mrs. Cumberbatch?” he asked. “Oh, for shame! Think of all the guineas I have paid you.”
“You shall have them all back,” said Mrs. Cumberbatch. “But don’t tell of me.”
She began to whimper, and he remembered that she often made that sort of sniffling noise when Abibel was taking possession of her.
“That usually means that Abibel is coming,” he said, with withering sarcasm. “Come along, Abibel: we’re waiting.”
“Give me the trumpet,” whispered the miserable medium. “Oh, please give me the trumpet!”
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Tilly indignantly. “I would sooner use it myself.”
She gave a sob of relief.
“Oh do, Mr. Tilly!” she said. “What a wonderful idea! It will be most interesting to everybody to hear you talk just after you’ve been killed and before they know. It would be the making of me! And I’m not a fraud, at least not altogether. I do have spiritual perceptions sometimes; spirits do communicate through me. And when they won’t come through it’s a dreadful temptation to a poor woman to—to supplement them by human agency. And how could I be seeing and hearing you now, and be able to talk to you—so pleasantly, I’m sure—if I hadn’t super-normal powers? You’ve been killed, so you assure me, and yet I can see and hear you quite plainly. Where did it happen, may I ask, if it’s not a painful subject?”
“Hyde Park Corner, half an hour ago,” said Mr. Tilly. “No, it only hurt for a moment, thanks. But about your other suggestion——”
While the third verse of “Lead, kindly Light” was going on, Mr. Tilly applied his mind to this difficult situation. It was quite true that if Mrs. Cumberbatch had no power of communication with the unseen she could not possibly have seen him. But she evidently had, and had heard him too, for their conversation had certainly been conducted on the spirit-plane, with perfect lucidity. Naturally, now that he was a genuine spirit, he did not want to be mixed up in fraudulent mediumship, for he felt that such a thing would seriously compromise him on the other side, where, probably, it was widely known that Mrs. Cumberbatch was a person to be avoided. But, on the other hand, having so soon found a medium through whom he could communicate with his friends, it was hard to take a high moral view, and say that he would have nothing whatever to do with her.