“With kind and esteemed regards to Mme. Houdini and yourself,
(Signed) Juliette Bisson.”
(Translated.)
When I showed this letter to Mr. Feilding he was both surprised and pleased for it gave him an opportunity to invite me to become one of the Committee which was to investigate Mme. Bisson and Mlle. Eva’s seances to be held by the Society for Psychical Research, and so at the combined invitations of the mediums and Mr. Feilding I attended eight. Each of them lasted three hours and I firmly believe that a description of them and their results is important.
At these seances my word was pledged to give full and sacred thoughts and I tried to control my thoughts so that my whole attention could be given to the medium. There was no scoffing and there was the will to believe. I felt that if anything was manifested by the Spirits my conscience would be clear. However, I sat with my eyes open, taking in even the most minute details and keeping on my guard against any trickery. A number of times I occupied a “control” chair at the medium’s left with her left limb between mine and both of my hands holding her left hand and wrist, while Eric Dingwall had the Committee seat on her right. Eva was accompanied at all of the seances by Mme. Bisson and the method of procedure was always the same. After Eva had been stripped and searched[96] in an adjoining room by the lady members of the Committee, she returned dressed in tights and Mme. Bisson would then put her into a mesmeric sleep. There is no doubt in my mind that the girl was really put to sleep. We were requested to all join in asking her in unison for about fifteen minutes at each crisis to “give”—“donnez”—then, after about three hours, she would bring forth this alleged ectoplasm.
At one of the seances the Hon. Feilding did insist on Eva’s eating crackers and drinking coffee, so that if she had anything concealed in her stomach, which she might by regurgitation expel, the coffee would discolor it.
The seance of June 22, 1920, was held at 20 Hanover Square, London. Mme. Bisson and Eva retired to another room and Eric Dingwall sewed a black lace veil to the tights which Eva wore. This veil completely enshrouded her and looked like a sort of bag or net. The object of this was to prevent her from placing anything in her mouth or get anything from her tights to the neck—in fact, it was a double security against fraud. We sat and waited and finally she expelled from her mouth a great deal of foam.
Feilding and Baggley stated that it looked as though it had come from her nose. I saw distinctly that it was a heavy froth and was adhering to her veil on the inside. Dingwall, who sat next to the medium, agreed with me it had emanated from her mouth, but when she leaned forward it looked as though it was coming from her nose. She produced a white plaster and eventually managed to juggle it over her eye. There was a face in it which looked to me like a colored cartoon and seemed to have been unrolled.
The last thing she produced that evening was a substance which she said she felt in her mouth and asked permission to use her hands to show. This was granted and she took a load from her mouth behind the veil which was wet and looked soaked. It appeared to be inflated rubber. No one saw a face painted on it. Presently it seemed to disappear. They all said it “vanished suddenly,” but my years of experience in presenting the Hindoo needle trick[97] convinced me that she “sleight-of-handed” it into her mouth while pretending to have it between her fingers. I know positively that the move she made is almost identical with the manner in which I manipulate my experiment. Dingwall was very confident and told Mme. Bisson that he was nearly satisfied with Eva’s experiments. She showed her peevishness to Feilding so plainly that I could scarcely conceal my smiles.
In the course of conversation after the seance, Mme. Bisson told the Committee that at one time Eva had materialized on the top of her knees the head of an American soldier with a heavy mustache and blue eyes. It caused some merriment when Dingwall asked her how she could tell the color of a man’s eyes in the dark. Mme. Bisson, perplexed and in grieved tones, asked whether they were suspicious or simply did not believe her. They tried hard to pacify her but to no avail.