The Professor's Mystery Part 29

Suddenly I found Lady's eyes upon me. "I think Mr. Crosby has something to suggest," she said, and with her words a suggestion came to me.

Reid snorted.

Doctor Paulus smiled very gravely. "That busy mind of Mr. Crosby has before been useful," he said. "What is this idea, then?"

"It sounds pretty wild and theatrical," said I, "but couldn't we reach the root of the trouble by making the cure come from the same source? We might tell her for ever that her ideas were false and harmful, and she'd only feel that we were profane. But if the medium herself denied them--these visions and voices must be at least partly a fake. Now, if we can persuade or force her to show Mrs. Tabor how it's done--and I think I know how to exert pressure upon her--then might not the illusion be dispelled once for all? I mean, whether Mrs. Mahl is a fake or not, can't she be made to undo the work she has done, and discredit the dangerous belief she has taught?"

Mr. Tabor was leaning forward in his chair as I finished. Reid was walking the floor again and shrugging his shoulders; and Lady was looking at me with eyes of absolute belief.

"Fake?" asked Doctor Paulus unexpectedly.

"Sham, trick, fraud," I explained, and he nodded, frowning.

"Oh, but this whole thing's absurd," Reid put in. "Crosby's a good fellow and clever, and all that, but he's a layman and this is a complicated problem. It's all one if after another. If the woman's willing to expose herself, and if she does it well, and if mother believes her, and if all this would have anything to do with the case.

Besides it would be a shock, a violent shock, a dangerous shock. No sense at all in it. Melodrama isn't medicine."

"I am not so sure," said Doctor Paulus. "It is unusual and what you call theatrical, but my work is unusual and many times theatrical also. I have need to act much of the time with my patients. With the individual mind one must use each time an individual cure. This at least strikes at the cause of the trouble, and might succeed. With your permission, Mr.

Tabor, we will try it."

"But her heart, man, her heart," objected Reid, "what about her heart, and the shock?"

"Well, we can dare, I think, to risk that. Every operation is a risk that we judge wise to take, and this is a malignant misbelief to be extirpated. There will be no unreasonable danger."

"If we can somehow get this medium out here--" said Mr. Tabor.

"That I shall manage, to bring her to-morrow afternoon, telling her perhaps of a private sitting in the interest of science. I am not often so much away, but this case is of importance." He rose, and looked at his watch. "Is not that the motor-car now at the door?"

On the step he turned to me with his quizzical smile. "It is perhaps well for us all to have your mind stimulated, Mr. Crosby. That is a beautiful and intelligent young lady." He looked abruptly from me to the midnight sky. "It appears, if I do not mistake, that we shall have rain," he chirped. "Good night," and he stepped gravely into the limousine and closed the door with a slam.

CHAPTER XXV

FIGHTING WITH SHADOWS

The morning came dark and stormy, with a September gale driving in from the Sound, and the trees las.h.i.+ng and tossing gustily through gray slants of rain. It was so dark that until nearly noon we kept the lights burning; and through the unnatural morning we sat about listlessly, unwilling to talk about the impending crisis and unable to talk long of anything else for the unspoken weight of it upon our minds. Mrs. Tabor kept her room, with Sheila and most of the time Lady busy with her. She seemed hardly to remember the night before, save as a vague shock; and physically she was less weakened by it than might have been expected; but her mind wavered continually, and she confused with her hallucination of Miriam the ident.i.ty of those about her. The rest of us talked and read by s.n.a.t.c.hes, and stared restlessly out of the rain-flecked windows. Mr. Tabor and I began a game of chess.

It was well on in the afternoon when the automobile came in sight, swis.h.i.+ng through the sodden grayness with curtains drawn and hood and running-gear splashed with clinging clots of clay. None of us knew who saw it first; only that we three men were at the door together encouraging one another with our eyes. The medium greeted us with a gush of caressing politeness, glancing covertly among us as she removed her wraps, and bracing herself visibly beneath her unconcern. It was she who made the first move, after Doctor Paulus had introduced us and we were seated in Mr. Tabor's study behind closed doors.

"Mr. Crosby is the gentleman who turned the light on me last evening,"

she said. I wish I could express the undulating rise and fall of her inflection. It was almost as if she sang the words. "Of course with him present I would not be willing to do anything. It was very painful, besides the risk, a dreadful shock like that."

"I shall not be in the room," I answered, "and I'm sorry to have caused you any discomfort, Mrs. Mahl. We needed the light, I thought."

"Oh, it wasn't the pain;" she smiled with lifted eyes. "We grow so used to it that we don't consider suffering. It was very dangerous, waking one out of control suddenly. You might have killed me, but of course you weren't aware." She turned to Doctor Paulus: "You understand, Doctor, how it is, how it strains the vitality. The gentleman didn't realize."

We had become, at the outset, four strong men leagued against an appealing and helpless woman. Perhaps I should say three; for Doctor Paulus did not seem impressed.

"Yes, I know," he chirped. "We need not, however, consider that. You are here, madam, as I have told you, for a scientific experiment under my direction. Mr. Crosby will not be in the room. With your permission, I will now explain the nature of that experiment. There is in this house a lady, a patient of mine, Mrs. Tabor, who has for some time frequently sat with you. She has on these occasions habitually conversed, as she believes, with the spirit of her daughter Miriam that is some years dead."

"That is our greatest work." She was not looking at Doctor Paulus, but at the rest of us. "To be able to soften the great separation. You others hope for a reunion beyond the grave, but we ourselves know. If you could only believe--if you could realize how wonderful it is to have communion with your--"

"We shall not go into that," said Doctor Paulus. "Mrs. Tabor, as I said, believes. She is therefore in a hysterical condition to which you have largely helped to contribute. I do not say she is insane; she is not.

But I do say she stands on the parting of the ways, and that, to save her mind, or as it may be, her life, it is necessary that these unhealthy conversations shall cease."

The medium looked now at Doctor Paulus. "The poor woman! Isn't it terrible? But you know, I can't believe, Doctor, that the sittings do anything but soothe and comfort her. It can't be that you think her insane just because she believes in spiritualism? You believe too much yourself for that."

Doctor Paulus looked at her steadily. "I have told you plainly that she is not insane yet," he said.

"See here," snapped Reid. He had been shuffling his feet and fidgeting in his chair for some minutes. "No use discussing the ethics of your business with you. Let's come right down to the facts. We're not asking for advice. We're stating a case. Plain fact is that Mrs. Tabor's going insane. You can stop it by showing her that these suppressed spirits are a trick. Will you do it, or not? That's the whole question."

The medium had risen, and was looking for her handkerchief, eying Reid with meek fearlessness. "Of course, I'm used to this," she murmured, "but not among educated people. A few centuries ago, Doctor, your profession was regarded in the same light. I don't imagine we can have anything in common. Is the car still at the door?"

"Hold on, Walter," Mr. Tabor interrupted quietly. "Mrs. Mahl, you must allow for our feelings in this matter. Please sit down again. Now, we make no charges against you. The issue is not whether you are sincere in your beliefs, nor whether we agree with them." He moved one hand in a slow, broad gesture. "All that we leave aside. The point is here: Mrs.

Tabor's belief in these things is harmful and dangerous to her. And it must be done away with, like any other harmful and dangerous thing. We don't ask whether it is illusion or fact; we ask you, for the sake of her health, to make her believe that it is an illusion."

"You know, of course, that I have no control over the spirit voice,"

said Mrs. Mahl blandly. "Do you wish me to refuse to sit for her?"

"Here and now, we wish to have you sit for her," Doctor Paulus put in, "and show her, once for all, how this her daughter's spirit is made. It is to cure her of all credulousness in it, for with her mind clean of such poison she shall recover."

"Would you have me lie to her even for her good?" The woman was either a wonderful actress or a more wonderful self-deceiver. She turned to Mr.

Tabor appealingly: "How can I deny my own faith? Do you think the truth can ever be wrong?"

Mr. Tabor went suddenly purple: "If it is the truth," he growled, "it's a truth out of h.e.l.l, and we're going to fight it. But it isn't."

Not in the least disconcerted by her false move, she turned back to Doctor Paulus. "Doctor," she said, dropping her air of martyrdom and speaking more incisively than I had yet heard her, "you are the one who knows. These gentlemen do not understand. You know that there are mysteries here that your science can't explain, whatever you think about them. You know the difference between my powers and the fakes of a two-dollar clairvoyant. You know it in spite of yourself. Now tell me how you can reconcile it with your conscience, to bring me up here to listen to such a proposal as this?"

The alienist's Napoleonic face hardened, and his voice took a shriller edge.

"We shall not go into that," he said. "And now we will make an end of this talking. You are partly sincere, but you are charlatan also. I have seen all the records, and I have attended your sittings, and I have all the data, you understand. And I have my position, so that people listen to me. You have done tricks, once, twice, many times, and I have all the facts and the dates. So. You will do as I say, and I will remember that you are part honest. Or, otherwise; if you will not, then I expose you altogether, publicly."

"You can say anything you like," she retorted coolly. "I don't care a bit. Just because you're a big doctor, you needn't think I care. Folks are so used to you scientific men denying everything, that when you support us it helps, and when you attack us it don't matter. You think your little crowd of wise ones is the whole earth. My clients have faith in me. Go ahead, and expose all you want to."

"Wouldn't it be wiser to make friends of us?" Mr. Tabor asked slowly.

"We'll make you a by-word," sputtered Reid. "We'll run you out of the country. That's what we'll do, we'll run you out of the country."

She smiled: "All right, Doctor. Run along." Then rising to her feet again, with a sweeping gesture, "Say what you will, all of you," she cried tragically, "I defy you!" And she marched over to the door.

"One moment, Mrs. Mahl," said I. "The man who was with me at your sittings was a reporter, the only one there. If I say so, he'll scare-head you as a faker--in letters all across the front page. You won't be a serious impostor, or have the strength of a weak cause. We won't attack you and give you a chance to defend yourself, but we'll make a nationwide mock of you. You'll be a joke, with comic drawings."

"You're trying to bluff me," she sneered. Then all at once, her coolness gave way, and she flung herself around upon us in a flood of tears: "You're a nice crowd of men, aren't you?" she sobbed, "to make a dead set on one woman this way!" She came swiftly up to me, and caught both my hands, leaning against me with upturned face. "Did you see anything wrong at my sittings? Have you anything against me, that you'd swear to, yourself?"

"Not a thing," I answered. "What of that?"

"Then you'd _lie_ about me?" I could feel the hurry of her breathing.