Visible and InvisibleBenson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Science
Visible and Invisible
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
English fiction -- 20th century; Ghost stories, English; Horror tales, English; Short stories, English
He did not pause for my reply, for I heard the click of his receiver
going back into its place. Clearly he assumed that I was coming, and
that I suppose had the effect of suggestion on my mind. I told myself
that I would not go, but in a couple of minutes his certainty that I
was coming, coupled with the prospect of being interested in something
else than air-raids, made me fidget in my chair and eventually go to
the street door and look out. The moon was brilliantly bright, the
square quite empty, and far away the coughings of very distant guns.
Next moment, almost against my will, I was running down the deserted
pavements of Newsome Terrace. My ring at his bell was answered by
Horton, before Mrs. Gabriel could come to the door, and he positively
dragged me in.
“I shan’t tell you a word of what I am doing,” he said. “I want you to
tell me what you hear. Come into the laboratory.”
The remote guns were silent again as I sat myself, as directed, in a
chair close to the gramophone trumpet, but suddenly through the wall I
heard the familiar mutter of Mrs. Gabriel’s voice. Horton, already busy
with his battery, sprang to his feet.
“That won’t do,” he said. “I want absolute silence.”
He went out of the room, and I heard him calling to her. While he was
gone I observed more closely what was on the table. Battery, round
steel globe, and gramophone trumpet were there, and some sort of a
needle on a spiral steel spring linked up with the battery and the
glass vessel, in which I had seen the frog’s heart beat. In it now
there lay a fragment of grey matter.
Horton came back in a minute or two, and stood in the middle of the
room listening.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now I want you to listen at the mouth of the
trumpet. I’ll answer any questions afterwards.”
With my ear turned to the trumpet, I could see nothing of what he was
doing, and I listened till the silence became a rustling in my ears.
Then suddenly that rustling ceased, for it was overscored by a whisper
which undoubtedly came from the aperture on which my aural attention
was fixed. It was no more than the faintest murmur, and though no words
were audible, it had the timbre of a human voice.
“Well, do you hear anything?” asked Horton.
“Yes, something very faint, scarcely audible.”
“Describe it,” said he.
“Somebody whispering.”
“I’ll try a fresh place,” said he.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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