He had played a little on his grand piano, that occupied a third of his sitting-room, and had then dropped off to sleep before his fire.
He awakened suddenly to see the big man standing almost over him, and sat up confusedly.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Baxter; the porter"s boy told me to come straight up. I found your outer door open."
Laurie hastened to welcome him, to set him down in a deep chair, to offer whisky and to supply tobacco. There was something about this man that commanded deference.
"You know why I have come, I expect," said the medium, smiling.
Laurie smiled back, a little nervously.
"I have come to see whether you will not reconsider your decision."
The boy shook his head.
"I think not," he said.
"You found no ill effects, I hope, from what happened at Lady Laura"s?"
"Not at all, after the first shock."
"Doesn"t that rea.s.sure you at all, Mr. Baxter?"
Laurie hesitated.
"It"s like this," he said; "I"m not really convinced. I don"t see anything final in what happened."
"Will you explain, please?"
Laurie set the results of his meditations forth at length. There was nothing, he said, that could not be accounted for by a very abnormal state of subjectivity. The fact that this ... this young person"s name was in his mind ... and so forth....
"... And I find it rather distracting to my work," he ended. "Please don"t think me rude or ungrateful, Mr. Vincent."
He thought he was being very strong and sensible.
The medium was silent for a moment.
"Doesn"t it strike you as odd that I myself was able to get no results that night?" he said presently.
"How? I don"t understand."
"Why, as a rule, I find no difficulty at all in getting some sort of response by automatic handwriting. Are you aware that I could do nothing at all that night?"
Laurie considered it.
"Well," he said at last, "this may sound very foolish to you; but granting that I have got unusual gifts that way--they are your own words, Mr. Vincent--if that is so, I don"t see why my own concentration of thought, or hypnotic sleep or trance or whatever it was--might not have been so intense as to--"
"I quite see," interrupted the other. "That is, of course, conceivable from your point of view. It had occurred to me that you might think that.... Then I take it that your theory is that the subconscious self is sufficient to account for it all--that in this hypnotic sleep, if you care to call it so, you simply uttered what was in your heart, and identified yourself with ... with your memory of that young girl."
"I suppose so," said Laurie shortly.
"And the rapping, loud, continuous, unmistakable?"
"That doesn"t seem to me important. I did not actually hear it, you know."
"Then what you need is some unmistakable sign?"
"Yes ... but I see perfectly that this is impossible. Whatever I said in my sleep, either I can"t identify it as true, in which case it is worthless as evidence, or I can identify it, because I already know it, and in that case it is worthless again."
The medium smiled, half closing his eyes.
"You must think us very childish, Mr. Baxter," he said.
He sat up a little in his chair; then, putting his hand into his breast pocket, drew out a note-book, holding it still closed on his knee.
"May I ask you a rather painful question?" he said gently.
Laurie nodded. He felt so secure.
"Would you kindly tell me--first, whether you have seen the grave of this young girl since you left the country; secondly, whether anyone happens to have mentioned it to you?"
Laurie swallowed in his throat.
"Certainly no one has mentioned it to me. And I have not seen it since I left the country."
"How long ago was that?"
"That was ... about September the twenty-seventh."
"Thank you...!" He opened the note-book and turned the pages a moment or two. "And will you listen to this, Mr. Baxter?--"Tell Laurie that the ground has sunk a little above my grave; and that cracks are showing at the sides.""
"What is that book?" said the boy hoa.r.s.ely.
The medium closed it and returned it to his pocket.
"That book, Mr. Baxter, contains a few extracts from some of the things you said during your trance. The sentence I have read is one of them, an answer given to a demand made by me that the control should give some unmistakable proof of her ident.i.ty. She ... you hesitated some time before giving that answer."
"Who took the notes?"
"Mrs. Stapleton. You can see the originals if you wish. I thought it might distress you to know that such notes had been taken; but I have had to risk that. We must not lose you, Mr. Baxter."
Laurie sat, dumb and bewildered.
"Now all you have to do," continued the medium serenely, "is to find out whether what has been said is correct or not. If it is not correct, there will be an end of the matter, if you choose. But if it is correct--"
"Stop; let me think!" cried Laurie.
He was back again in the confusion from which he thought he had escaped. Here was a definite test, offered at least in good faith--just such a test as had been lacking before; and he had no doubt whatever that it would be borne out by facts. And if it were--was there any conceivable hypothesis that would explain it except the one offered so confidently by this grave, dignified man who sat and looked at him with something of interested compa.s.sion in his heavy eyes? Coincidence? It was absurd. Certainly graves did sink, sometimes--but ... Thought-transference from someone who noticed the grave...? But why that particular thought, so vivid, concise, and pointed...?