MADAME MATHILDA responded well to the aromatic spirits of ammonia. In fact they were the only spirits that had actually appeared in the seance room.
Nevertheless the scene was not without a trace of mystery.
Just before she had passed out with a horrible wail, the medium had shrieked something about objects representing life and death. Those items were on exhibit in the light that now filled the parlor. They were lying in the very middle of the room, the things that Madame Mathilda had named: a sprig of lilac and a dagger.
Commissioner Weston took the case in hand. That was, he took Madame Mathilda in hand, by planting a hard hand upon her shoulder and shaking her to her feet despite the protests of the faithful clients who surrounded their poor medium.
Announcing himself in a tone of final authority, the commissioner started to declare that the medium was under arrest for producing fraudulent materializations, only to find himself interrupted by a timid-looking client who suddenly became vociferous.
“Those aren’t materializations!” the man argued. “They are apports. You have no case against this medium, commissioner.”
The term “apports” rather stumped Weston until Cranston intervened in his calm style.
“This gentleman is right, commissioner,” declared Cranston. “A materialization is the partial or complete production of an actual spirit form. The mere arrival of an object in a seance room is called an apport, particularly when the object is inanimate.”
The distinction didn’t quite satisfy Weston.
“These things were materialized,” stormed the commissioner, gesturing to the knife and the sprig of lilac. “Of course the medium faked it, but she claims the objects came from the spirit land.”