He paused, looking sharply at the elder man, and away again.
“Yes?”
Laurie began to finger a pencil that lay on the chimney-shelf.
“You see what I mean, don’t you?” he said. “I’m not disputing—er—your point of view, nor your sincerity. But I do wish you would give me another proof or two.”
“You haven’t had enough?”
“Oh! I suppose I have—if I were reasonable. But, you know, it all seems to me as if you suddenly demonstrated to me that twice two made five.”
“But then, surely no proof—”
“Yes; I know. I quite see that. Yet I want one—something quite absolutely ordinary. If you can do all these things—spirits and all the rest—can’t you do something ever so much simpler, that’s beyond mistake?”
“Oh, I daresay. But wouldn’t you ask yet another after that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Or wouldn’t you think you’d been hypnotized?”
Laurie shook his head.
“I’m not a fool,” he said.
“Then give me that pencil,” said the medium, suddenly extending his hand.
Laurie stared a moment. Then he handed over the pencil.
On the little table by the armchair, a couple of feet from Laurie, stood the whisky apparatus and a box of cigarettes. These the medium, without moving from his chair, lifted off and set on the floor beside him, leaving the woven-grass surface of the table entirely bare. He then laid the pencil gently in the center—all without a word. Laurie watched him carefully.
“Now kindly do not speak one word or make one movement,” said the man peremptorily. “Wait! You’re perfectly sure you’re not hypnotized, or any other nonsense?”
“Certainly not.”
“Just go round the room, look out of the window, poke the fire—anything you like.”
“I’m satisfied,” said the boy.
“Very good. Then kindly watch that pencil.”
The medium leaned a little forward in his chair, bending his eyes steadily upon the little wooden cylinder lying, like any other pencil, on the top of the table. Laurie glanced once at him, then back again. There it lay, common and ordinary.
For at least a minute nothing happened at all, except that from the intentness of the elder man there seemed once more to radiate out that curious air of silence that Laurie was beginning to know so well—that silence that seemed impenetrable to the common sounds of the world and to exist altogether independent of them. Once and again he glanced round at the ordinary-looking room, the curtained windows, the dull furniture; and the second time he looked back at the pencil he was almost certain that some movement had just taken place with it. He resolutely fixed his eyes upon it, bending every faculty he possessed into one tense attitude of attention. And a moment later he could not resist a sudden movement and a swift indrawing of breath; for there, before his very eyes, the pencil tilted, very hesitatingly and quiveringly, as if pulled by a spider’s thread. He heard, too, the tiny tap of its fall.
He glanced at the medium, who jerked his head impatiently, as if for silence. Then once more the silence came down.
A minute later there was no longer the possibility of a doubt.
There before the boy’s eyes, as he stared, white-faced, with parted lips, the pencil rose, hesitated, quivered; but, instead of falling back again, hung so for a moment on its point, forming with itself an acute angle with the plane of the table in an entirely impossible position; then, once more rising higher, swung on its point in a quarter circle, and after one more pause and quiver, rose to its full height, remained poised one instant, then fell with a sudden movement, rolled across the table and dropped on the carpet.
The medium leaned back, drawing a long breath.
“There,” he said; and smiled at the bewildered young man.
“But—but—” began the other.
“Yes, I know,” said the man. “It’s startling, isn’t it? and indeed it’s not as easy as it looks. I wasn’t at all sure—”
“But, good Lord, I saw—”
“Of course you did; but how do you know you weren’t hypnotized?”
(Laurie sat down suddenly, unconscious that he had done so.)
The medium put out his hand for his pipe once more.
“Now, I’m going to be quite honest,” he said. “I have quite a quantity of comments to make on that. First, it doesn’t prove anything whatever, even if it really happened—”
“Even if it—!”
“Certainly. … Oh, yes; I saw it too; and there’s the pencil on the floor” (he stooped and picked it up.)
“But what if we were both hypnotized—both acted upon by self-suggestion? We can’t prove we weren’t.”
Laurie was dumb.
“Secondly, it doesn’t prove anything, in any case, as regards the other matters we were speaking of. It only shows—if it really happened, as I say—that the mind has extraordinary control over matter. It hasn’t anything to do with immortality, or—or Spiritualism.”
“Then why did you do it?” gasped the boy.
“Merely fireworks … only to show off. People are convinced by such queer things.”
Laurie sat regarding, still with an unusual pallor in his face and brightness in his eyes. He could not in the last degree put into words why it was that the tiny incident of the pencil affected him so profoundly. Vaguely, only, he perceived that it was all connected somehow with the ordinariness of the accessories, and more impressive therefore than all the paraphernalia of planchette, spinning mirrors, or even his own dreams.
He stood up again suddenly.
“It’s no good, Mr. Vincent,” he said, putting out his hand, “I’m knocked over. I can’t imagine why. It’s no use talking now. I must think. Good night.”
“Good night, Mr. Baxter,” said the medium serenely.
VIII
I
“Her ladyship told me to show you in here, sir,” said the footman at half-past eight on Sunday evening.
Laurie put down his hat, slipped off his coat, and went into the dining room.
The table was still littered with dessert-plates and napkins. Two people had dined there he observed.
