Smiley," I said, as I placed my hand upon her wrist. "Proceed, "Wilbur."
Let me hear your voice now."
With tense expectation, I put my ear close to the psychic"s lips and listened breathlessly. The horn soared into the air and was drummed there, as if to show that it was out of the reach of the psychic, but no voice came from it! This was a disappointment to me, as well as to Fowler, and I banteringly said: "You know this failure is suspicious, Wilbur." It seems to indicate that Mrs. Smiley is only a wonderful ventriloquist, after all. Can"t you prove that she is independent of your voice? Can"t you do something decisive at this moment?"
No reply came to this; but while my hand was firmly pressed upon her wrist (both sleeves being nailed to the chair), the loose leaves of the paper in the centre of the table were whisked away to the left. I could follow their flight, and we all heard their deposition on a couch in a corner of the room.
"Fowler," I said, "are you controlling your wife"s hands?"
"Yes; we had nothing to do with that noise."
This was another tense moment, for the movement of those papers was very ghostly indeed. We had demonstrated clearly that their movement was supernormal.
"May I come forward?" asked Fowler.
Tap--"_No_," was the decided answer.
I then asked: ""Wilbur," do you want me to change with Fowler and control Mrs. Fowler"s hands?"
An emphatic "_Yes_" was rapped in reply.
"They seem as anxious for a conclusive test as we are," remarked Fowler.
"Did you mean you didn"t want Mrs. Fowler unaccounted for?"
A perfect fusillade of raps followed: "_Yes, yes, yes._"
Fowler then came forward to Mrs. Smiley"s left, while I returned to the table. Taking both of Mrs. Fowler"s hands in mine, and setting the toes of my shoes upon hers, I awaited developments. At this moment, while Fowler was pressing the psychic"s imprisoned wrists, the cone banged about most furiously, describing wide circles entirely out of Mrs.
Smiley"s reach. This action was another perfectly convincing test of the psychic"s supernormal powers. As the same movement had taken place with _each_ of us in control of the psychic, each was absolved from any complicity in the matter; but I did not forget my further test. "Mrs.
Smiley," I said, "I want Mr. Fowler to return to his seat, and I want to place my hand over your lips--or to m.u.f.fle you in some way. _I must_ prove that you have nothing to do with the production of those voices.
Will you permit this test?"
"Certainly," she answered, with patient sweetness. "You may gag me in any way you please. I am perfectly sure you can secure the proof you want." Upon this hint I acted. Taking a large kerchief from my pocket, I tied it tightly around her mouth, knotting it at the back, and then, in growing excitement, challenged the ghostly voice: "Now, "Wilbur," let"s hear from you."
A moment later the voice came from the cone, but apparently very much m.u.f.fled and blurred. "You are not articulating well," I rather sarcastically observed.
Instantly the voice came out clearly, more sharply than ever before.
"_I was fooling you!_" jeered "Wilbur."
We all applauded. "There, that"s better," I said. "Your voice improved wonderfully."
"Wilbur" chuckled with glee. "_I"ve taken a lozenge_," he whimsically retorted, expressing a very human delight in our mystification.
Fowler then said: "Now let"s consider this a moment, Garland. Suppose Mrs. Smiley has been able to loosen the gag. How does she handle the cone? We will suppose she is a marvellous ventriloquist. How does she write on the pads on the table, and how does she whisk them away? You see, it isn"t the matter of one thing, but of all that has happened."
"Yes, I admit that everything points to an exercise of supernormal force. It really looks, so far as anything in the dark can look, like spirits, but I prefer to think Mrs. Smiley has the power to project her will in some way."
"I don"t see how we are going to escape the spirit hypothesis," replied Fowler.
""Mitch.e.l.l,"" I said, addressing the phantom, "I want to examine that gag, and I want to hold both hands of the psychic. Will you permit that?"
There was no reply to this, and Fowler offered an explanation: "We had that test at a previous sitting."
I explained to the invisible ones: ""Wilbur," it is absolutely essential that you should prove to me that your voice is not dependent upon the vocal chords of the psychic. You see the importance of this, do you not, Mrs. Smiley?"
"Indeed, I do," she earnestly answered, her voice sounding very faint and m.u.f.fled through the kerchief. "I am anxious for the test."
"Very well, then. Now I want you to sing a song, and while you are singing I am going to insist on "Wilbur"s" speaking. Will you do that, "Wilbur"?" The cone was drummed upon as if in vigorous promise of success.
Mrs. Smiley sang, or rather hummed; but there was no response on the part of the ghostly voices, and a moment later she called, faintly: "The kerchief is slipping down, Mr. Garland."
I rose and went to her side. As I untied the kerchief, she said, plaintively: "I am sorry we didn"t get the voices. I am sure we can if we try again. Please try again." And a vigorous drumming on the cone seemed to second her plea.
However, it was getting very late, and I said: "I think we will postpone further experiment to-night. What are your sensations now?"
"I am almost paralyzed, and still deaf, too, but that often happens. My feet are as if they did not exist."
"But your mind is perfectly normal?"
"Yes, it seems to be."
Soon after this I returned to my seat; the cone was lifted high into the air silently, broken apart, and then, with the small end jangling inside the larger one, was carried over the table and back to the floor. It fell with a bang that seemed final and decisive. "That is "good-bye,""
said Mrs. Smiley.
Upon lighting the gas we found our victim as before, sitting absolutely as we had left her. The table edge was twenty-four inches from her finger-tips. The place where the cone lay, which we had marked with chalk when it was first drummed upon, was thirty-six inches from one hand and forty inches from the other. But the most inexplicable of all--the tangible, permanent record--was the seven sheets of paper which were lying upon a couch six feet from Mrs. Smiley"s left hand. _They were all written upon legibly, and pinned together with a black pin, which had been thrust through the writing._ "Wilbur" had scrawled his name, Mrs. Fowler"s father"s name was signed to a message, and there were other signatures unknown to any of us. The pencil was on the carpet, forty inches from Mrs. Smiley"s hand. The leaves of paper, at the moment when they were grasped and lifted, were more than forty inches from her finger-tips. How this was done I do not know: but of this I am absolutely sure: the psychic did not remove them from the table by means of her ordinary, material limbs. Barring the failure to disa.s.sociate her voice from that of "Wilbur," she had met every demand upon her. Her powers were truly magical. I cannot say I _saw_ the cone move, but I have proven that the psychic did not surrept.i.tiously touch it or fraudulently write upon the papers during this sitting. I cannot swear that Fowler was controlling his wife"s hands while the cone was floating (and while I held the psychic"s imprisoned hands), but I _believe_ he was. In short, barring the one sense of sight--an all-important one, I admit--these happenings were convincing and fitted in with phenomena which I had secured with other psychics.
Nevertheless, I was not satisfied. I wanted Brierly, or some other fifth person, in the room, in order that _both_ of the psychic"s hands could be controlled at the same time that Mrs. Fowler"s were secured. So long as a single hand was left free, the doubter would be warranted in questioning our results.
The next two or three sittings were partial failures--so much so that I made no record of them. Possibly, conditions were not strict enough. At any rate, the final and most conclusive sitting came three days later.
It was held in Fowler"s house. We followed the conditions of the previous sitting very closely--the same room, the same table, the same fastenings as before.
There was present a friend of Fowler"s, a young man who was possessed of some psychic power. We will call him Frank. Fowler and I took entire charge of the psychic, and her bonds were even more carefully nailed than before. We began the seance, as before, by putting her to sleep.
Not long after "Maudie" spoke, saying: "_Mr. Mitch.e.l.l wishes the thread fastened to mama"s hands in the way Mr. Garland desires._"
I fastened a strong thread to each wrist as I had done several times before, pa.s.sing the ends under the chair-arm in such wise that any movement of the psychic would be plainly and instantly detected. We then returned to our seats, and, though conditions seemed favorable, no marked phenomena took place; the cone was lifted, it is true, but we were used to this now, and accepted it as quite commonplace.
At six o"clock the voice of "Maudie" came: "_Please go down to supper.
Mr. Mitch.e.l.l says he will be able to give you what you ask for after you return._"
I did not ask to what he referred, but I had in mind the test to prove the voices independent of the psychic"s vocal organs, and at the dinner we discussed methods by which this could be made clear.
"If they will let me put my hand over her mouth," I said to Fowler, "I will be satisfied."
"Do you mean that you will believe in spirits?" he smilingly challenged me.
"Oh, I won"t go so far as to promise that, but I confess it would help to prove their existence."
"We may be about to get something more conclusive than that."
"Let us fix our minds on two things: first, to get the writing, or at least movement, with every hand controlled; and, second, the voices, while one of us covers Mrs. Smiley"s mouth with a hand."