Seeing is Believing

'Now, that interested me. I've always thought it was a good deal of a fake. That's to say: I've seen 'em on the stage, where they fetch somebody up out of the audience and make him quack like a duck. But there always seemed to me something very, very phoney about it.'

'There's nothing phoney about it, Frank.'

'No. That's what Rich told me, and they all backed him up. I'm afraid I got a bit argumentative. I said I didn't maintain it couldn't be done; I said all I maintained was that I should like to see it done where there was no possibility of a fake.

'I said, furthermore, 'Suppose you could put a person under hypnotic influence like that, so that he or she was absolutely controlled by your will, would that person do anything you ordered?' I was thinking of the dangers of it, you see. I said, 'For instance, could you get a girl to do thus-and-so?' '

Sharpless paused.

He brooded, rubbing the aide of his jaw, but with a subdued twinkle in his eye nevertheless. He had a charm of naivete which enabled him to get away with even worse social bombshells than this.

'It wasn't a very tactful question, I admit,' he said.

'Under the circumstances,' said Courtney, 'perhaps not. Well?'

'Well, Dr. Rich got very grave. He said, yes, you could, if the girl were already inclined that way; and that it was one of the dangers of hypnotism in the hands of unprincipled persons. I saw I'd rather dropped a brick, so I tried to cover it up by saying that what I meant was: could you get her to commit a crime? I said: 'If a victim is really under the will of a hypnotist, wouldn't there be the devil to pay if you told her to commit robbery or murder?' '

Courtney drew at his pipe. 'And what did Dr. Rich have to say to that?'

'He explained it. The explanation sounds reasonable, I'm bound to admit.'

'What is it?'

'That under hypnotism you will only do what you're capable of doing in waking moments. Like this! Suppose Vicky Fane walks into this room now. We hypnotize her, and then say, 'Now walk up to the bar and have a big drink of whiskey.' Vicky doesn't drink much, but she does indulge occasionally. So she'd go and do it like a soldier. You follow that?'

'Yes.'

'But suppose you got a real, honest, fanatical teetotaler; a Band-of-Hoper; somebody like Lady Astor, for instance. After hypnotizing her—'

'Beautiful thought.'

'Shut up. After hypnotizing her, you plank down half a tumbler of whiskey and say, 'All right, polish that off.' But she wouldn't. She couldn't. She might be in agony, because the hypnotist's will is law. She might even pick up the glass. But she wouldn't. If she did, it would mean there was something wrong with her teetotaler's principles.

'Finally, Dr. Rich said he regretted he hadn't got certain things there that night, or he would show me an interesting experiment which he thought I should find conclusive. That made me suspicious again, and I asked why he couldn't do the experiment now. He said it required certain properties.

'Whereupon Fane's uncle — decent old chap — suggested that we should meet again for dinner the next night, the same lot of us, and Dr. Rich could show us the experiment. Fane, the blister, didn't like this a bit. But I gather that Uncle Hubert is the wealthy relative whom Fane wants to keep on the good side of, so he managed to cough up an invitation. So it's dinner there again tonight.'

Again Sharpless paused, uneasily.

'What sort of experiment, Frank?'

'I don't know,' admitted Sharpless. His voice was heavy with worry. 'Look here, Phil. Would you say that I was what-d'ye-callit? Thingummybob? Psychic?'

Courtney laughed outright.

'All right. Laugh. Your own doom will soon be on you anyhow. But I tell you—' Sharpless brought his fist slowly down on the table—'I tell you there's something funny going on in that house. Under the surface.'

Courtney was direct. 'You mean you think the lady's husband suspects your intentions?'

Sharpless hesitated, so Courtney prodded again.

'How far has the affair gone?'

'It hasn't gone anywhere yet. Hang it, I haven't even got any reason to suppose she cares two pins for me!' Sharpless brooded.'And yet I do know, too. It was last week. At a damn concert in the Promenade. They were playing Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes … if you laugh I'll murder you!'

Courtney showed no disposition to laugh. After surveying him narrowly* with defiant embarrassment, Sharpless stared hard at the contents of his tankard and spoke in a muttering voice.

'She doesn't love the swine Fane. That I do know. Not that they don't put up a good front! This Dr. Rich may be hot stuff as a psychologist, but he can't see psychology when it's under his nose. I rode part of the way home with him on the bus last night. And he kept saying what an ideal couple the Fanes were, and how pleasant it was to see such things in this age of divorce, until I could have landed him one.'

'H'm.'

'But when I say there's something funny going on there, I don't mean that, exactly. I mean something else that's queer. And I'm not looking forward to tonight. I wish you could come along.'

'I'd like to. But I've got a nine o'clock appointment with Sir Henry Merrivale.'

Sharpless moved his shoulders.

'Well?' he said. 'You've heard about it now. What's your advice?'

'My advice is: be careful.'

'It's all very well to sit there and say that, Phil. But I can't be careful.'

'Well, what do you want? Divorce?'

'A divorce, even if Fane consented,' said Sharpless, 'would mean good-by to the Staff College. But I'm beginning to think-'

'You're beginning to think: never mind the Staff College. To hell with the Staff College. You don't want to go to the place anyway. Is that it?'

'No, not that, exactly. Something like it, though. And, in any case, don't sit there puffing your pipe and looking like the Wise Man of the East. This is serious. I want advice; not sarcasm. Can't you rally round and offer a helpful suggestion?'

Courtney stirred with discomfort. Though he was only half a dozen years older than Sharpless's twenty- seven, he felt at once far older and yet less experienced.

'Look here, Frank. I can't solve your problem for you, and neither can anybody else. It's something you've got to work out for yourself.'

'Oh, Lord!'

'It's true. If you love this girl, and she loves you, and you can see a way out without too much scandal, I should say go ahead. Have the girl and the Staff College too. Only for the love of Mike make sure you know what you're doing.'

Sharpless did not reply.

His shoulders hunched up, and his gaze strayed out of the window down into the street. His eyes, ordinarily gray, were now almost black; the brows pinched together above them.

'That's that, then.' He turned round from the window, like a man coming to a decision, and spoke in a different voice. 'The governor'll want to see you. What about coming along home with me for lunch?'

'Glad to. But if-'

'No. Let's forget it.' Sharpless drained his tankard and got up. 'But I wish tonight were over. Cripes, how I wish tonight were over!'

It might have been instinct; it was certainly prophecy. Imperceptibly, a design had now been completed. The arrow was fitted, nock to the string; the bow was drawn to the full arc of its power. You could now only wait for the thud as the shaft went home.