The Shadow World Part 26

"Yes, now and then. However, most of the corrections were put in upside down, as regards her position, and during the last sitting she appeared to be no more than a mere on-looker. Once as we sat holding the slate 'Ernest' whispered to me: '_Blake is a fine fellow. I met him twice._'"

"'Can you tell me where?' asked Blake.

"'_It was in New York City_,' was the reply; then, after a moment's hesitation: '_It was at dinner--both times!_' 'You are right,' said Blake, much impressed. 'Can you tell me the places?' '_Once was on Fifth Avenue. The other was--I can't tell the location exactly; but it was where we went down a short flight of steps._' 'That is correct also,'

said Blake. 'How many persons were there?' '_Five._' 'Quite right. Can you tell me who they were?' '_Well, Mary was there, and you, of course; but I can't be sure of the others._'

"Blake looked at me in astonishment, and our minds flashed along the same line. Suppose the whisper were only a bit of clever ventriloquism, how did the psychic secure the information conveyed in this dialogue? It was given as I write it, with only a bit of hesitation once or twice; and yet, it may have been merely thought transference."

"_Merely_ thought transference!" exclaimed Miller. "I consider thought transference quite as absurd as slate-writing."

Fowler interposed. "I consider this a simple case of spirit communication. You should be grateful for such a beautiful response."

"This significant fact is not to be overlooked," I resumed: "the psychic secured almost nothing else that concerned either Blake's affairs or my own. Mainly the whispers had to do with 'E. A.,' which, of course, bears out Miller's notion that the psychic could deal only with what was public property, and yet this little colloquy about the dinners in New York is very convincing so far as mind-reading goes.

"During the third sitting, Blake again being present, 'E. A.' took control, as before, from the start, and carried forward the recording of the musical fragment. '_I want you to fill in the treble, Blake_,' he said. '_It's nothing but the bare melody now._' Blake protested: 'I'm not up to this.' And the whisper came swiftly, '_You're too modest, Blake_'; and a moment later it said: '_I hope you're not bored, Garland._' If all this was a little play of the psychic's devising it was very clever, for after a few minutes of close attention to Blake, 'E. A.' turned toward me and asked, with anxious haste: '_Where's Garland?_' 'I am here,' I answered. '_Don't go away_,' he entreated. It was as if for the moment he had lost sight of me by reason of fixing his attention upon Blake."

"That is singular!" exclaimed Fowler. "Their field of vision is evidently much more restricted than we thought."

"It must be very small indeed, for Blake and I sat touching elbows. Two or three times the whispering voice called, '_Is Garland here?_' and once it asked: '_What is Garland doing? I see his hand moving._' I explained that I was making notes. '_Don't do it!_' was the agitated request."

"A very neat little touch," remarked Miller.

"We worked for a long time over this music, directed by the voice, both in the notation and in the execution of it. The lines were drawn for both ba.s.s and treble lengthwise of the slate, and Blake found the little piece difficult to play, partly because the staves were on different leaves of the slate and partly because the notes, especially some of those put in at the beginning by the composer, were becoming blurred. It was marvellous to see how exactly these dim notes were touched up by the mysterious pencil beneath the table. But our progress was slow. 'E. A.'

was very patient, though now and then he plumply opposed his will to Blake's. Once, especially, Blake exclaimed: 'That can't be right!'

"'_Yes, it is right!_' insisted 'E. A.'

"'But it is very unusual to construct a measure in that way.' For there was a seeming confusion of three-four time with six-eight time.

"'_It is a liberty I permit myself_,' was the swift reply.

"In the last bar, which did not appear to be filled satisfactorily, the composer directed the insertion of a figure 2. This meant, as became clear through a subsequent reference to his printed scores, the playing of two quarter-notes in the time of three eighth notes, but was not understood at the moment by Blake.

"'_Never mind_,' said 'E. A.,' pleasantly, '_I will write it differently_.' The figure '2' was cancelled, and the measure was completed by a rest. This is only one of many astonis.h.i.+ng pa.s.sages in this dialogue.

"In all this work 'E. A.' carried himself like the creative master. He held to a plane apparently far above the psychic's musical knowledge, and often above that of his amanuensis. He was highly technical throughout in both the composition and the playing, and Blake followed his will, for the most part, as if the whispers came from Alexander himself. And yet I repeat the music and all may have come from a union of Blake's mind with that of the psychic, with now and then a mixture of my own subconscious self."

"What was the psychic doing all this time?" asked Miller.

"She was listening to the voice and repeating the words which Blake could not hear. She seemed merely the somewhat bored interpreter of words which she did not fully understand. It was precisely as if she were catching by wireless telephone the whispered instructions of my friend 'E. A.' I can't believe she consciously deceived us, but it is possible that these ventriloquistic voices have become a subconscious habit.

"One other very curious event I must note. Once, when Blake was asking for a correction, the whisper exclaimed: '_I can't see it, Blake!_'

"'_Cover it with your hand_,' interjected the 'control.' Blake did so, and 'E. A.' spoke, gratefully: '_I see it now._"

"Seeing cannot mean the same with them that it does with us," exclaimed Fowler. "You remember Crookes put his finger on the print of a newspaper behind his back, and the 'spirit' spoke the word that was under his finger-tip. They apprehend by means of some form of etheric vibration not known to us."

I resumed: "Let me stop here for a moment to emphasize a very curious contradiction. Between my first seance with Mrs. Hartley and this, our third attempt to secure the music, I had held two sittings in the home of a friend. Mrs. Hartley had come to the house about ten o'clock in the morning, bringing nothing with her except a few tips of soft slate-pencil. During the sitting I had secured in the middle of a manila pad (a pad which the psychic had never seen and which I had taken from my friend's desk) these words: '_Have Schumann.--E. A._' This writing I had taken to mean that 'Ernest' wanted to hear some of Schumann's music, and in that understanding I had called Blake in to play. This had seemed at the moment perfectly conclusive and entirely satisfactory; yet now, in this final sitting, 'E. A.' suddenly reverted to this message, and whispered: '_Garland, there is a certain etude which I took to Schumann.

I want you to regain it and take it to Smart. Mary will know about it. I meant to take it away, but did I? I was so badly off mentally that I don't know whether I did or not._' Whereupon Blake said: 'Do you mean Schumann the publisher?' '_Yes_,' 'E. A.' replied; and I said: 'And you want the ma.n.u.script recalled from Schumann and given to Smart?' '_Yes_,'

was his very definite answer.

"'Very well, I will attend to it,' I replied. 'What do you want done with this fragment, "Isinghere"?' I pursued. 'Shall I publish it?'

'_That is what it is for_,' he answered, curtly.

"'How many bars are in it?' asked Blake. 'Forty?' '_More_,' returned the whisper.

"Blake made the mistake of again suggesting an answer. 'As many as sixty?'

"'_Yes, sixty or seventy_,' was the answer, like an echo. Here Blake's thought governed, but it was evident that the psychic had no clear conception of what this reference to Schumann meant in the first instance, for 'E. A.' was unable to complete his sentence, which should have read: '_Have Schumann return a certain etude which I took.--E. A._'

Furthermore, the psychic evidently believed in the truth of the message or she would not have gone into it with such particularity; she would have been lacking in caution to have given me such definite and detailed information, knowing that it was all false.

"So far as my own mind is concerned, I had no knowledge of such a music publisher as Schumann. Smart I had met. Blake, however, knew of both firms. The entire message and the method of its communication were deeply exciting at the time, and completed what seemed like a highly intellectual test of ident.i.ty, and we both left the house of the psychic with a feeling of having been very near to our dead friend.

"'To identify one of these bars of music would be a good test,' said Blake, 'but to find that _etude_ at Schumann's would be a triumph.'

"'To find the ma.n.u.script fragment would be still more convincing,' was my answer.

"Imagine my disappointment when, in answer to my inquiry, Schumann replied that no such _etude_ had ever been in his hands, and Alexander's family reported that no fragment called 'Unghere' could be found among the composer's ma.n.u.scripts."

Fowler shared my regret. "What about the other messages? Were they all disappointing?"

"No; some of them were not. The most intimate were true; and a signature which came on the slate under test conditions, and which I valued very little at the moment, turned out to be almost the exact duplicate of Alexander's signature as he used to write it when a youth twenty years ago. As a matter of fact, it closely resembled the signature appended to a framed letter which used to hang upon the wall of his study. But, even so, its reproduction under these conditions is sufficiently puzzling."

"What was Blake's conclusion? Did he put the same value upon it all that you did?"

"Yes, I think he was quite as deeply impressed as I. He said the music seemed like Alexander's music, somehow distorted by the medium through which it came. 'It was like seeing Alexander through a pane of crinkly gla.s.s,' he put it. And he added: 'I had the sense of being in long-distance contact with the composer himself.' He had no doubt of the supernormal means through which our writing came, but he remains doubtful of the value of the music as evidence of 'Ernest's' return from the world of shadows."

"Have you tried to secure more of the music?" Fowler asked.

"No, not specifically; but I've had one further inconclusive sitting since then with Mrs. Hartley. Almost immediately 'Ernest' whispered a greeting and said: '_I want to go on with that music, Garland. I want to put B and D and A into the first bar--it's only a bare sketch as it stands._'

"To this I replied: 'I can't do it, 'Ernest.' It's beyond me. Wait till I can get Blake again.'

"This ended his attempt, although he was 'terribly anxious,' so the psychic said. I am going to try for the completion of this score through another psychic. If I can get that eighth bar taken up and carried on by 'Ernest' through another psychic the case will become complicated.

"I have gone into detail in my account of this experiment, for the reason that it ill.u.s.trates very aptly the inextricable tangle of truth and error which most 'spirit communications' present. It typifies in little the elusive problem of spirit identification which many a veteran investigator is still at work upon, after years of study. Maxwell gives a case of long-continued unintentional and unconscious deception of the general kind which went far to prevent his acceptance of the spirit hypothesis."

"I don't think the failure to find the musical fragment invalidates this beautiful communication," declared Fowler. "You admit that many of the messages were to the point, and that some of them were very intimate and personal."

"Yes, speaking generally, I would say that 'E. A.' might have uttered all the words and dictated all the messages except those that related to the publis.h.i.+ng matter; but there is the final test. Schumann declares that no such ma.n.u.script has ever been in his hands."

"He may be mistaken, or 'E. A.' may have misspoken himself--for, as William James infers, the spirits find themselves tremendously hampered in their attempts to manifest themselves. Furthermore, you say you could not hear all that 'E. A.' spoke--you or the psychic may have misunderstood him. In any case, it all seems to me a fine attempt at identification."

"I wish I could put the same value on it now that I did when Blake played the first bar of that thrilling little melody; but I can't. As it recedes it loses its power over me."

"What did Alexander's family think of the music?"

"They thought it more like a Cheyenne or Omaha love-song than like a melody of 'Ernest's' own composition."