When Dr. H—— had finished it, he said to me, "If the spirits (or anybody) can write on that paper without cutting the silk, I will believe whatever you wish." I asked, "Are you quite sure that the packet could not be undone without your detecting it?" His answer was—"That silk is not to be procured except from a medical man; it is manufactured expressly for the tying of arteries; and the knots I have made are known only to medical men. They are the knots we use in tying arteries. The seal is my own crest, which never leaves my watch-chain, and I defy anyone to undo those knots without cutting them, or to tie them again, if cut. I repeat—if your friends can make, or cause to be made, the smallest mark on that paper, and return me the box in the condition it now is, I will believe anything you choose." And I confess I was very dubious of the result myself, and almost sorry that I had subjected the doctor's incredulity to so severe a test.
On the evening appointed we attended the séance, Dr. H—— taking the prepared packet with him. He was directed to place it under his chair, but he tied a string to it and put it under his foot, retaining the other end of the string in his hand. The meeting was not one for favorably impressing an unbeliever in Spiritualism. There were too many people present, and too many strangers. The ordinary manifestations, to my mind, are worse than useless, unless they have been preceded by extraordinary ones; so that the doctor returned home more sceptical than before, and I repented that I had taken him there. One thing had occurred, however, that he could not account for. The packet which he had kept, as he thought, under his foot the whole time, was found, at the close of the meeting, to have disappeared. Another gentleman had brought a sealed box, with paper and pencil in it, to the séance; and at the close it was opened in the presence of all assembled, and found to contain a closely written letter from his deceased wife. But the doctor's box had evaporated, and was nowhere to be found. The door of the room had been locked all the time, and we searched the room thoroughly, but without success. Dr. H—— was naturally triumphant.
"They couldn't undo my knots and my seals," he said, exulting over me, "and so they wisely did not return the packet. Both packets were of course taken from the room during the sitting by some confederate of the medium. The other one was easily managed, and put back again—mine proved unmanageable, and so they have retained it. I knew it would be so!"
And he twinkled his eyes at me as much as to say, "I have shut you up. You will not venture to describe any of the marvels you have seen to me after this." Of course the failure did not discompose me, nor shake my belief. I never believed spiritual beings to be omnipotent, omnipresent, nor omniscient. They had failed before, and doubtless they would fail again. But if an acrobatic performer fails to turn a double somersault on to another man's head two or three times, it does not falsify the fact that he succeeds on the fourth occasion. I was sorry that the test had been a failure, for Dr. H——'s sake, but I did not despair of seeing the box again. And at the end of a fortnight it was left at my house by Mr. Olive, with a note to say that it had been found that morning on the mantel-piece in Mr. Haxby's bedroom, and he lost no time in returning it to me. It was wrapt in the brown paper, tied and sealed, apparently just as we had carried it to the séance in Ainger Terrace; and I wrote at once to Dr. H—— announcing its return, and asking him to come over and open it in my presence. He came, took the packet in his hand, and having stripped off the outer wrapper, examined it carefully. There were four tests, it may be remembered, applied to the packet.
I. The arterial silk, procurable only from a medical man.
II. The knots to be tied only by medical men.
III. Dr. H——'s own crest, always kept on his watch chain, as a seal.
IV. The lid of the cardboard box, glued all round to the bottom part.
As the doctor scrutinized the silk, the knots, and the seals, I watched him narrowly.
"Are you quite sure," I asked, "that it is the same paper in which you wrapt it?"