Again I was brought face to face with the mystery of mediumship. Sitting thus, with no one present but Mrs. Brierly, a woman to be trusted, the cone was drummed upon and carried about as if by a human hand. It touched my cheek at a distance of two feet from Mrs. Smiley's hands, and "Wilbur's" voice—strong, vital, humorous—came to me, conversing as readily, as sensibly, as any living flesh-and-blood person, and all the time I held to my tapes, carefully noting that no movement, beyond a slight tremor, took place in the psychic's arms. Just before each movement of the cone she shivered convulsively and sighed, but while the cone moved she was deathly still. Each time as the cone left the table it seemed to rock to and fro as though a hand were trying to grasp it, and a moment later it rose with a light spring. My impression was—my belief at the moment was—that Mrs. Smiley had nothing to do in any ordinary way with the movement of the horn. If there is any virtue in a taut tape and my sense of touch, her arms lay like marble during the precise time the voice was speaking to me. I could detect no connection between herself and the voice.
"Mitchell" assured me that he approved of every test we were putting upon "the instrument," and expressed confidence that she would triumph over Miller. "But the circles have been too often changed," he asserted, "and the places have not been well chosen. All must be unhurried and harmonious," he added, and I replied that I had been discouraged, but that this sitting had given me new interest. "I will be faithful to the end," I assured him.
"Wilbur" and "Mitchell" were perfectly distinct personalities, and appeared to confer and act together. I had a sense of nearness to the solution of the mystery that thrilled me. Here in the circle of my out-stretched arms the incredible was happening. I held Mrs. Brierly's hands, and controlled (by means of my tightly stretched tape) the movements of the psychic, and yet the megaphone was lifted, handled, used as a mouthpiece by "spirits." I felt that if at the moment I had been able to turn on a clear light I could have seen my ghostly visitors. This final hour's experience revived all my confidence in Mrs. Smiley, and not even another long series of absolute failures could destroy my faith in her honesty or my belief in her occult powers.
My patience was sorely tried by twelve almost perfectly useless sittings, during which everybody dropped away but Mr. and Mrs. Fowler, Dr. Towne, Brierly, and myself. They were not utterly barren sittings, but the phenomena were repetitious or slight and fugitive.
Mr. and Mrs. Fowler were friends of Brierly, and, like him, avowed spiritists, but they both lent their best efforts to make the tests complete and convincing. After trying sittings here and there, we finally settled upon a series of afternoon sessions in Fowler's own house. This was the twenty-sixth sitting of the series, and Cameron's Amateur Psychical Society was practically a memory. I was now going ahead pretty much on my own lines, but with an eye to catching Miller and the Camerons at a successful séance before concluding my search.
Mrs. Smiley was in great distress of mind over the failure of her powers. "I guess I'm no good any more," she said. "I never sit now without a feeling that perhaps my power is gone forever. This Eastern climate is so harsh for me, and I long for my own California. If you will not give up, I will keep trying as long as my guides advise it."
"You have done your part," I said, with intent to console her.
"Please don't give up," she pleaded.
"I am not giving up—on the contrary, I am only beginning to fight," I assured her, paraphrasing General Grant, or some other obstinate person. "I recognize the truth of what you complain about, but I am sure that at Fowler's, in a small, warm, well-aired room, you will feel at home and be secure of interruption."
Mrs. Fowler, a very sensitive, thoughtful, dark-eyed little lady, received us at the appointed hour with quiet cordiality, and suggested that her own room up-stairs would be a comfortable and retired place.