Seeing is Believing

'Yes?' prompted Ann Browning.

Rich held up the toy dagger. Its blade was painted silvery gray to represent a patchy and unconvincing- looking metal; its handle was black. Without any sense of incongruity, Rich bent the soft rubber back and forth.

'Bought this morning at Woolworth's,' he explained. 'A sixpenny rubber dagger which can hardly be called dangerous. That's Exhibit A. But Exhibit B is different.'

He replaced the dagger in the box, and took out the second article. When they saw it, the breath from his audience was something like a mutter of consternation.

'Exhibit B,' said Rich. 'A real revolver, loaded with real bullets.'

There was a silence.

Over his audience the revolver seemed to exercise a kind of evil fascination. It was a Webley.38, of dark, polished metal except for the ivory grip. Rich broke it open, plucked one of the cartridges from the cylinder, tossed the cartridge into the air, and caught it.

'Definitely not a toy,' he pointed out, replacing the bullet and closing the magazine with a sharp click. 'In fact, as deadly a weapon as we're likely to find. Therefore.. yes? Yes? What is it?'

He broke off, frowning at Sharpless.

The latter was going through a pantomime of extraordinary concentration. After screwing up his face and making gestures to attract Rich's attention, Sharpless was stabbing his finger in the direction of the partly open door.

Rich, as though enlightened, uttered an exclamation. He hurried over and closed the door firmly.

'She heard you!' said Sharpless in a whisper. 'She couldn't have helped hearing you!'

Rich smiled.

'I sincerely hope she did,' he answered with composure. 'If she didn't, there is no point in this experiment.'

'What?'

Rich tossed the pistol across to Sharpless, who automatically caught it.

'Examine that revolver,' Rich suggested. 'Or, more properly, examine the bullets.'

The bullets were dummies.

Each empty brass cartridge-case had been fitted with a little rounded cylinder of wood, painted gray to represent a bullet. Sharpless took out each one in turn, and examined it carefully before he fitted it back again.

'I think I begin to see,' he muttered, 'what sort of dirty trick you've got in mind. This gun isn't dangerous at all. But—'

'Exactly,' agreed Rich. 'It is no more a deadly weapon than the dagger. But Mrs. Fane thinks it is.'

Uncle Hubert Fane, whose apprehension at first sight of the revolver had now merged into relief, was taking such fast, furious puffs at his cigar that his head appeared to be enveloped in smoke.

'You follow me?' inquired Rich. 'Here are two articles. One of them, the dagger, Mrs. Fane's inner mind knows to be harmless. The other, that revolver, she believes to be real. Very well. I shall put Mrs. Fane into a state of hypnosis. Then I shall order her to.. '

'To kill somebody,' breathed Ann Browning.

'Exactly,' said Rich.

It was now altogether dark, except for the white light of the parchment-shaded bridge lamp beside the sofa. A faint cooler breeze stirred the curtains at the windows.

'Mind!' added Rich, rubbing a hand vigorously across his bald skull, 'I don't say I shall be able to manage this. I may not be able to establish the proper degree of influence. But if I do—'

'If you do?' prompted Ann.

'If I do,' smiled Rich, 'then I can tell you exactly what will happen. Under hypnosis, you understand, the patient has no mind or will of her own. She is a machine. A zombie. A walking corpse, under my direction. But —'

'Yes?'

'When she is ordered to pick up that revolver and shoot someone she loves, then she will balk. Even in anguish she won't be able to do it. Powerful as my influence is, it can't get past the barrier in her subconscious mind. But when I order her to take the dagger and stab someone, she will strike without the least hesitation. Because her subconscious mind knows that it's all a game.'

Again there was a silence.

'Well, Captain Sharpless?' said Rich. 'If I succeed in doing that, will you own yourself convinced?'

'I don't like it!' said that young man abruptly, and jumped to his feet.

'You don't like it, Captain Sharpless? But you were the one who suggested it.'

'Yes, but I didn't know what you were going to do. I didn't know you were going to do this.”

'I think it's the most thrilling thing I've ever heard of,' declared Ann Browning.

'Who,' asked Sharpless, 'who are you going to order her to kill?'

Rich looked surprised.

'Her husband, of course. Who else?'

Frank Sharpless craned his neck round. But if he expected any support from Fane, he did not get it.

From whatever cause, Arthur appeared to have changed his mind. He sat very still in an easy chair, his middle-sized, thick-set figure balanced on die edge of it, staring down at his well-polished shoes. The dead cigar was between his fingers. He moved his heels outwards, a queer gesture, and brought them together again with a click. He glanced up, his dark face impassive.

'I don't hold with this. Still… it won't hurt my wife in any way?'

'Oh, no. She may feel tired afterwards. But, if Mrs. Fane is the healthy, uncomplex person I am sure she is, it won't affect her at all.'

'Will she know what's happening at the time?' 'No.'

'Or remember it afterwards?' 'No.'

'Is that so, now?' mused Arthur. He scratched the side of his nose with a fingernail of the game hand that held his cigar. He studied Rich. Again the rare.smile gleamed. 'Suppose (just suppose, now!) that my wife did have it in her inmost mind to — hurt me?'

Rich was taken aback.

'My dear sir,' he began, with the color rising in his face, 'I never thought… that is, it seemed so obvious!.. Mr. Hubert Fane assured me…'

'Oh, we're only supposing!' Arthur reassured him. He was really smiling now. The thick complacency of his tone would have been felt anywhere, even at his club. 'I'm not one to talk about my marriage, as you'll agree. But I don't mind saying that to find a happier couple than Victoria and I you'd have to go far. Very far indeed.'

He paused.

'Some people,' he added, 'might call my life humdrum—'

'Dear boy,' interposed Uncle Hubert, with his eye on a corner of the lamp-shade, 'I feel sure they would do you no such injustice, if they knew you as I do.'

'But I don't call it humdrum,' concluded Arthur, after giving him a brief look. 'Carry on with the experiment.'

Frank Sharpless took a few steps up and down the bare hardwood floor, with its few bright rugs. His black mess jacket with scarlet lapels, and close-fitting black trousers with scarlet stripe down the side, gave him a lean and Mephistophelian appearance which was contradicted by the naive youthfulness of the face. His booted footsteps rattled on the floor. Though he made a gesture of protest, he did not speak again.

'Then we are all agreed?' inquired Rich. 'Good!'

He put the lid on the cardboard box containing the revolver and the rubber dagger. This box he handed to Arthur.

'Keep our two exhibits, Mr. Fane, until I tell you what to do with them.' Then Rich went over and opened the door. 'Come in, Mrs. Fane,' he invited.