As, although the results we obtained were far beyond any expectations,
the purely physical phenomena were relatively insignificant, it is not
necessary to go further into the detail of the room. Robinson has done
that, anyhow, for the Society of Psychical Research, a proceeding
to which I was opposed, as will be understood by the close of the
narrative.
Further to satisfy Mrs. Dane, we examined the walls and floor-boards
carefully, and Herbert, armed with a candle, went down to the cellar
and investigated from below, returning to announce in a loud voice which
made us all jump that it seemed all clear enough down there. After that
we sat and waited, and I daresay the bareness and darkness of the
room put us into excellent receptive condition. I know that I myself,
probably owing to an astigmatism, once or twice felt that I saw wavering
shadows in corners, and I felt again some of the strangeness I had felt
during the day. We spoke in whispers, and Alice Robinson recited the
history of a haunted house where she had visited in England. But Herbert
was still cynical. He said, I remember:
“Here we are, six intelligent persons of above the average grade, and in
a few minutes our hair will be rising and our pulses hammering while a
Choctaw Indian control, in atrocious English, will tell us she is happy
and we are happy and so everybody’s happy. Hanky panky!”
“You may be as skeptical as you please, if you will only be fair,
Herbert,” Mrs. Dane said.
“And by that you mean--”
“During the sitting keep an open mind and a closed mouth,” she replied,
cheerfully.
As I said at the beginning, this is not a ghost story. Parts of it we
now understand, other parts we do not. For the physical phenomena we
have no adequate explanation. They occurred. We saw and heard them. For
the other part of the seance we have come to a conclusion satisfactory
to ourselves, a conclusion not reached, however, until some of us had
gone through some dangerous experiences, and had been brought into
contact with things hitherto outside the orderly progression of our
lives.
But at no time, although incredible things happened, did any one of us
glimpse that strange world of the spirit that seemed so often almost
within our range of vision.
Miss Jeremy, the medium, was due at 8:30 and at 8:20 my wife assisted
Mrs. Dane into one of the straight chairs at the table, and Sperry, sent
out by her, returned with a darkish bundle in his arms, and carrying a
light bamboo rod.
“Don’t ask me what they are for,” he said to Herbert’s grin of
amusement. “Every workman has his tools.”
Herbert examined the rod, but it was what it appeared to be, and nothing
else.
Some one had started the phonograph in the library, and it was playing
gloomily, “Shall we meet beyond the river?” At Sperry’s request we
stopped talking and composed ourselves, and Herbert, I remember, took
a tablet of some sort, to our intense annoyance, and crunched it in his
teeth. Then Miss Jeremy came in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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