‘I’m glad to have that assurance, sir, and I respect it,’ Nye went on, ‘but I take a less sanguine view of the probable outcome of several people of both sexes linking hands in a darkened room.’
Before Probert could reply, Peter Brand tactfully intervened. ‘It isn’t absolutely necessary to link hands. The spirits don’t insist upon it. We do it as a safeguard against trickery. If everyone holds hands, as we did just now, you can be quite sure that no one is producing artificial phenomena. But you need not link hands for the next experiment if you prefer not to, and I don’t object to the seance taking place in a subdued light, if that would ease your mind, sir. We could take away the firescreen and sit by the natural light of the fire.’
‘That sounds a promising way to preserve decorum,’ said Jowett, who felt it was time he contributed something constructive to the debate. He was resigned to relinquishing Alice Probert’s hand now that Nye had made such an issue of it.
‘I have no objection either way,’ said Miss Crush. ‘Personally, I don’t feel threatened by anyone present, including poor Uncle Walter.’
‘Is it agreed that we continue as Mr Brand suggests, then?’ asked Strathmore, as keen as Brand to resume the seance.
‘Very well,’ said Nye, ‘but I give due notice that Alice and I shall withdraw at the first hint of anything objectionable.’
‘That’s agreed, then,’ said Brand cheerfully. ‘Perhaps you will set up the apparatus, gentlemen. I shall repair the small amount of damage that our visitor inflicted.’ He went to the mantelpiece, stood the vase of chrysanthemums in its former position and gallantly withdrew his own handkerchief to mop up the water spilt along the ledge and in the hearth.
‘That’s not necessary,’ said Probert. ‘I can-’
‘-Call a servant?’ said Brand. ‘I thought you’d given them a night off, sir. Leave this to me and show your other guests what is behind the curtain in your study.’
It was an electric chair.
More precisely, it was a handsome oak chair carved in the Gothic style, with brass handles screwed to the arms. Wires trailed from the handles to a black box the size and shape of a shoe-box, to which a thicker lead was connected on the other side and snaked across the floor and under the door.
‘It is a simple electrical circuit,’ Dr Probert explained to the others as they grouped round the chair. ‘I am not sure how intimately you are all acquainted with the theory of electricity. This is one of the few houses in Richmond so far connected to Mr Cooper’s electrical supply station in Queen’s Road. I have four storage batteries in my cellar, each with a tension of 104 volts, and they are charged from Mr Cooper’s generator. One does not require 400 volts to illuminate a house, of course, so we pass the current through a transformer which reduces it to the appropriate strength. The box you see on the floor is a step-down transformer of my own design, manufactured solely for this experiment. When I presently connect the supply to the transformer it will ensure that only a mild and even current passes through. It will travel along this copper wire to the handle of the chair. A similar wire leads from the other handle back to the transformer, so that when the handles are linked by a conducting agent an electrical circuit is formed.’
‘And Mr Brand is to be our conductor!’ cried Miss Crush delightedly. ‘What an ingenious idea! If he takes his hands off the chair the circuit will be broken.’
‘But is it quite safe?’ asked Alice anxiously.
‘Oh, perfectly, my dear,’ her father answered. ‘The current passing through him will be very mild, you see-a mere fraction of an ampere. The transformer steps down the electromotive force from the storage batteries to just twenty volts. But as an extra precaution we have thought of a further modification. It is this.’ He tapped a squat, metal instrument with a glass face, behind which a numbered dial was marked. ‘This is a galvanometer. It measures the strength of electricity which passes through it. I am going to introduce it into the circuit by connecting it to this wire which trails from the right arm of the chair. The wire is long enough uncoiled to enable us to have the galvanometer with us on the other side of the curtain. Mr Brand will sit here holding the chair-handles and we shall know from the instrument whether he breaks the contact for so much as a fraction of a second.’
‘Bravo!’ said Miss Crush. ‘What splendid reading it will make in Mr Strathmore’s report! I can visualise it already-
‘The
‘Frankly, it seems to me that you’re going to excessive lengths to make sure that the fellow’s hands stay on the chair,’ said Nye, voicing the thought that was crossing Jowett’s mind. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to have a couple of us in here watching him instead of a confounded galvanometer on the other side of a curtain?’
‘It would indeed,’ said Probert, ‘but it would certainly destroy the experiment. Mr Brand has been persuaded this evening to attempt the ultimate feat in the repertoire of spiritualism. It calls for a quite exceptional summoning of the powers at his disposal. He is going to pass into a state of total trance, and for this he requires a situation in which he is physically isolated. There are practical reasons for this: a medium completely in trance is in a singularly vulnerable state; he has, in effect, broken contact with the world, and any noise or interruption, however accidental, must come as a severe shock. Mr Brand will not mind my confiding to you that although he is no invalid, his constitution is not of the strongest. He has a condition known to the layman as a murmuring heart-not a serious handicap in normal circumstances, but one which could conceivably be complicated by a sudden shock. The few mediums who have attempted what Mr Brand is to try for the benefit of science this evening have always worked from a detached room or a specially constructed cabinet which insulates them from unpredictable shocks. We should be grateful that Mr Brand is prepared not only to attempt this experiment, but to submit to the intrusion of our electrical wires.’
‘I am profoundly grateful,’ murmured Miss Crush.
‘I’m sure you are, ma’am. And I have no doubt that the entire scientific world will share your sentiment if the experiment is successful.’
‘What
‘The object, William, is to produce, in scientifically controlled conditions, the total manifestation of a spirit.’
CHAPTER 6
Did you detect a cheat here? Wait! Let’s see!
Just an experiment first, for candour’s sake!
They had asked Inspector Jowett to take the galvanometer readings. There was sufficient light at the fireside to observe the tremors of the needle, and he squatted by the instrument with Strathmore at his side noting the information in a pocket-book. In different circumstances it would have pleased him to be invited to play an active part in such a crucial experiment. Tonight he had reservations.
Early in the evening he had begun to ponder the reason for his presence at the seance. On accepting Probert’s invitation to attend he had not given it a second thought. It was a mark of gratitude, a return for the small service he had rendered the doctor by arranging that Scotland Yard took over the burglary investigation.
But was it only that? As the scientific purpose of the evening had become increasingly clear, he had started to wonder whether there was not some other reason for his presence there; you did not, after all, select a team of scientific investigators on a social basis. Wonder had grown into something more disturbing when Strathmore had talked of publishing his findings in the
It was worrying, confoundedly worrying. For whilst Probert had given his word to say nothing during the
