The words 'can tell us of a photograph no copy of which had reached England' would lead us to believe that information that the photograph existed came from Raymond: fortunately the original account is accessible.
Here is the photograph story, taken from Raymond (p. 195). The medium speaks, saying: 'You have several portraits of this boy. Before he went away you had got a good portrait of him—two—no three. Two where he is alone and one where he is in a group of other men. He is particular that I should tell you of this. In one you see his walking-stick'. (Moonstone here put an imaginary stick under his arm.)
This is ordinary guess-work, and it would be true of the families of most officers, even as to the stick; but it was not true in this case, for we read that though they had 'single photographs of him of course, and in uniform', they had not one of him in a group of other men; yet this is the revelation referred to by Sir Arthur—the photograph incident that has impressed so many.
Let us put the two statements side by side:—
| Before he went away you had ... one where he is in a group of other men. He is particular that I should tell you of this. |
... Raymond can tell us of a photograph no copy of which had reached England? |
Not being able to explain the extraordinary identity of these photographs, I must leave the problem to the creator of Sherlock Holmes; we shall gain no help from Sir Oliver, for his ideas of identity, as we shall see in the next paragraph, are equally curious.
Now for 'exactly as he described it': Sir Oliver Lodge, having been informed in an ordinary letter that a group photograph containing Raymond is being sent to him from France, went to another medium and told her, 'He said something about having a photograph taken with some other men' (this itself is a garbled statement); leading questions followed, and the medium fenced with them. Here are the important ones:—
O. J. L.: 'Do you recollect the photograph at all?'
'He thinks there were several others taken with him, not one or two, but several.' (This is not even a guess.)
O. J. L.: 'Does he remember how he looked in the photograph?'
'No, he doesn't remember how he looked.'
O. J. L.: 'No, no. I mean was he standing up?'
'No, he doesn't seem to think so. Some were raised up round; he was sitting down, and some were raised up at the back of him. Some were standing, and some were sitting, he thinks.'
(Here is a correct description, anyhow; it is an even chance whether he is sitting or standing, and, the sitting chance being taken, the rest is padding. We are told on page 279 that another photograph showed him standing, so that a hit could have been scored if the other chance had been taken.)