But in the main we were satisfied. True, our one attempt to utilize a trumpet medium, strongly recommended by Mrs. Ostermaier as having predicted Willie’s measles, was most unfortunate. We had invited Charlie Sands to sit with us, and the early performance was most surprising. Mr. Abraham, the medium, went into a deep trance and the trumpet which had been placed on the floor moved about and touched us all. Not only that, but it hovered in the air in front of Charlie Sands, and after a number of kissing sounds, a young woman who said her name was Katie and that she used to know him, asked him to go to a private sitting at Mr. Abraham’s, because she didn’t want to make any trouble for him by talking there.
“That’s right, Katie,” he said. “I don’t seem to remember you, but be discreet anyhow. And you might pass that word along over there, because a lot of folks could come back and make trouble here if they wanted to.”
Well, she agreed to that and was just sending another kiss to him through the trumpet, when she sneezed twice. Tish thought it was Aggie, but it was not. And while this was being argued the medium in his chair suddenly gave a terrific yelp.
“I’ve been injured!” he shouted. “Somebody’s played a trick on me! I’m damaged! I’m hurt!”
Well, Aggie turned on the lamp, and Mr. Abraham was on his feet, making dreadful faces and pulling at the seat of his trousers. Somebody had put a tack with the point upright on his chair, and he must have been standing up, for he had sat down on it. He was very much upset, and left without waiting to collect his fee at all.
It turned out that Charlie Sands had suspected him right along, and had blown some snuff into the trumpet when he was talking to Katie. It was he, also, who had placed the tack on the chair.
A weaker spirit than Letitia Carberry might have been discouraged, but Tish was not daunted; and, although our next sitting was the last we held, since neither Aggie nor Hannah would so much as venture into a dark room after it, it was so conclusive that it left no room for doubt.
To be brief, Tish had always felt that in materializing a goldfish we had done well, but not sufficiently well.
“A fish,” she said, “is a lower earth form. It is soulless and purely material, for there is no record of water in the higher planes of existence, since in the spirit we neither thirst nor bathe. We must do better than that.”
As a result of this resolution we were, as I have said, compelled to give up our sittings entirely; but not before we had had a success beyond our wildest hopes.