The members smiled, but some colored a little as if the touch had reached a spot somewhat sensitive.
"It is exceedingly kind of him," one elderly gentleman remarked stiffly.
"He is explicit in his conditions," the President added.
The members were beginning to seem really awake, and Judge Hobart asked with some quickness what the conditions were.
"First," the President answered, "that his ident.i.ty shall not be revealed. I am not to tell his name, and he trusts to the honor of any member who may recognize him. A meeting is to be appointed when and where we please. He is to know nothing more than the time. I am to send a carriage for him, to provide certain things of which he has given me a list, to arrange a room according to his directions, and to give him my word that no record of the meeting shall appear in the newspapers."
"Are the things he wishes difficult to procure?"
"This is the list," said Dr. Taunton, taking a paper from his pocket.
"You will see that they are all sufficiently simple.
""Two rings of iron, four or five inches in diameter, interlocked and welded firmly.
""A ten-inch cube of hard wood.
""A six-inch cube of iron.
""A sealed letter, written by some member.
""A carpenter"s saw.
""A gold-fish globe ten inches or so across.
""Three smaller globes, one filled with red, one with blue, and one with a colorless liquid.
""A scale on which a man may be weighed.
""A stick of sealing-wax.
""A flower-pot filled with earth.
""An orange seed.""
"The articles are simple enough," Judge Hobart commented. "Are the arrangements required difficult?"
"No. He asks for a committee to examine him in the dressing-room; a platform insulated with gla.s.s and some substance he will furnish, and a little matter of the arrangement of lights that is easy enough."
The members of the Club meditated in silence for a moment, and then Professor Gray spoke.
"It must depend, it seems to me," he said, "on the sort of a man your mysterious magician is. If he is a person to be trusted, I should say go ahead."
"He is a gentleman," the President answered; "a man of social standing, money, education, and with a reputation in his special branch of knowledge both here and in Europe. If I named him, you would, I feel sure, give him a hearing without question."
"What is his specialty?" one member inquired.
"I hardly think it would be fair for me to tell. It would possibly be too good a clue to his ident.i.ty."
"Is it fair to ask if it is connected with any psychical branch?"
"Not in the least. I think I said at the start that I never suspected him of any interest in such subjects. He was asked to join this Club, and declined."
"Did he give any particular reason?"
The President smiled satirically.
"He said it would never accomplish anything."
"Perhaps that shows his common sense," Judge Hobart observed dryly. "I am bound to say that it has not accomplished much thus far. What I do not understand is why at this late day he takes an interest in our work."
"He did n"t go into that. He did not seem especially anxious. He merely told me that he was willing to show the Club certain things, and named his conditions. That is about the whole of it."
"Well," observed Judge Hobart, with his air of burly frankness, "I vote we have him. The only reason for shying off is that so many fellows, otherwise sensible, lose their heads the moment they try to investigate anything psychical."
"Is that a reflection on our Club?" Professor Gray asked good-naturedly.
In the end the decision was that the President should be instructed to make arrangements with the unknown, and an evening was chosen for the meeting. The place was left to the President, to be imparted to the members confidentially on the day appointed. Then the gentlemen went their several ways, each, except the President who knew, speculating upon the possible ident.i.ty of the mysterious wonder-worker.
II
When the clock struck eight on the evening appointed, the members of the Club were all present. The room to which they had been summoned by Dr.
Taunton was simply furnished with a table, before which the seats were arranged in a semicircle, and behind which was a small platform on which stood a single chair. This platform was raised on blocks of gla.s.s, above which were thin slabs of a substance which to the eye seemed like a sort of brown resin, in which were to be discerned sparkles of yellow, as of minute crystals. The chair was in turn insulated in the same manner, while before it for the feet of the performer was placed a slab of gla.s.s covered with the same resinous substance. On the chair lay a thick robe of knitted silk. Beneath the table was a trunk containing the articles of which the President had read a list at the previous meeting.
The members examined everything and handled everything except the platform and the chair upon it. These they were especially requested not to touch. At five minutes past eight a carriage was heard to stop outside, and almost immediately the President came in.
"The gentleman is in the dressing-room," he said, "and is ready for the examining committee. If the members will be seated, we shall be prepared to receive him."
The members took their seats, and there was a brief interval of silence.
Then Judge Hobart and Professor Gray, who had gone to the dressing-room, reentered. Between them was a tall man, well formed, rather slender, but showing in his figure some signs of approaching middle age. He wore simply a single garment of knit silk. It was laced in the back, and fitted him so tightly that the play of his muscles was as evident as it would have been in a nude figure. His face was covered down to the lips by a black mask of silk.
The unknown stepped out of the loose slippers he wore, mounted the platform, put on the silk robe, and sat down in the chair. Judge Hobart made a formal statement that the perfor-- that their guest had neither properties nor apparatus concealed about his person. Then he sat down, and silence filled the room.
"We are ready," President Taunton said.
The stranger smoothed from his lips the smile which had curled them when Judge Hobart so nearly spoke of him as the "performer." He rose, and stood on the slab before his chair.
"I must say a word or two by way of preface," he began, in a voice cultivated and pleasant. "In the first place, I have no concealed motive in coming here to-night. I am not even--as I shall convince you before we are done--gratifying my vanity by advertising my powers. It has seemed to me that the Club is not on the right track, and although in one sense it is none of my business, I am interested in the subject which it is, as I understand, the object of this body to investigate.
The paper by Judge Hobart in a recent number of the "Aga.s.siz Quarterly"
decided me to show to him that certain forces which he conclusively proves to be non-existent do, nevertheless, exist. As I am personally known to perhaps half the gentlemen in the room, and am likely to meet some of them not infrequently, I take the liberty of asking that if any one shall chance to recognize me, he will remember that I come on the condition that my ident.i.ty remain concealed. The President," he continued, "will bear me out when I say that I have not seen the things provided for use this evening, and that I had no knowledge of the place appointed for the meeting. The dressing-gown I sent him because the scantiness of my dress makes it rather a necessity. I presume that he has examined it carefully enough to be sure that it is innocent of witchery and of trickery."
He paused for a moment, and then in a tone somewhat more determined went on.
"One thing I must add. I decline to answer any questions whatever in regard to the means which produce the effects to which I shall call your attention. Those from whom I have learned would be sufficiently unwilling that I exhibit my power at all, and were there no other reason, their wishes would be sufficient to prevent me from offering information or explanation. I may not succeed in doing all that I shall attempt. I have laid out a pretty serious evening"s work, especially for one who lives as I do amid unfavorable conditions; and of course I can receive no a.s.sistance from my audience."
He took off the dressing-gown and dropped it into the chair. Then he removed from his finger a large seal ring, and laid it between his feet on the resinous slab.