electrical contrivance of some complicated kind.
It moved like a trolley and she wheeled it slowly and carefully to a position near the divan.
She bent over it, adjusting the controls, murmuring to herself:
'Compass, north-northeast… degrees… that's about right.' She took the glove and adjusted it in a particular position, switching on a small violet light beside it.
Then she spoke to the inert figure on the divan.
'Sybil Diana Helen, you are set free from your mortal sheath which the spirit Macandal guards safely for you. You are free to be at one with the owner of this glove. Like all human beings, her goal in life is towards death. There is no final satisfaction but death. Only death solves all problems. Only death gives true peace. All great ones have known it. Remember Macbeth, 'After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.' Remember the ecstasy of Tristan and Isolde. Love and death. Love and death. But the greatest of these is death…'
The words rang out, echoing, repeating – the big boxlike machine had started to emit a low hum, the bulbs in it glowed – I felt dazed, carried away. This I felt, was no longer something at which I could mock. Thyrza, her power unleashed, was holding that prone figure on the divan completely enslaved. She was using her. Using her for a definite end. I realised vaguely why Mrs Oliver had been frightened, not of Thyrza but of the seemingly silly Sybil. Sybil had a power, a natural gift, nothing to do with mind or intellect; it was a physical power, the power to separate herself from her body. And, so separated, her mind was not hers, but Thyrza's. And Thyrza was using her temporary possession.
Yes, but the box? Where did the box come in?
And suddenly all my fear was transferred to the box! What devilish secret was being practised through its agency? Could there be physically produced rays of some kind that acted on the cells of the mind? Of a particular mind?
Thyrza's voice went on:
'The weak spot… there is always a weak spot… deep in the tissues of the flesh… through weakness comes strength – the strength and peace of death… towards death – slowly, naturally, towards death – the true way, the natural way. The tissues of the body obey the mind… command them – command them… towards death… death, the Conqueror… death… soon… very soon… Death… Death… DEATH!'
Her voice rose in a great swelling cry… and another horrible animal cry came from Bella. She rose up, a knife flashed… there was a horrible strangled squawk from the cockerel… blood dripped into the copper bowl. Bella came running, the bowl held out…
She screamed out:
'Blood… the blood… BLOOD!'
Thyrza whipped out the glove from the machine. Bella took it, dipped it in the blood, returned it to Thyrza who replaced it
Bella's voice rose again in that high ecstatic call…
'The blood… the blood… the blood…!'
She ran round and round the brazier, then dropped twitching to the floor. The brazier flickered and went out.
I felt horribly sick. Unseeing, clutching the arms of my chair, my head seemed to be whirling in space…
I heard a click, the hum of the machine ceased.
Then Thyrza's voice rose, clear and composed:
'The old magic and the new. The old knowledge of belief, the new knowledge of science. Together, they will prevail…'
Chapter 18
'Well, what was it like?' demanded Rhoda eagerly at the breakfast table.
'Oh, the usual stuff,' I said nonchalantly.
I was uneasily conscious of Despard's eye on me. A perceptive man.
'Pentagrams drawn on the floor?'
'Lots of them.'
'Any white cocks?'
'Naturally. That was Bella's part of the fun and games.'
'And trances and things?'
'As you say, trances and things.'
Rhoda looked disappointed.
'You seem to have found it rather dull,' she said in an aggrieved voice.
I said that these things were all much of a sameness. At any rate, I'd satisfied my curiosity.
Later when Rhoda had departed to the kitchen, Despard said to me:
'Shook you up a bit, didn't it?'
'Well -'
I was anxious to make light of the whole thing, but Despard was not an easy man to deceive.
I said slowly, 'It was – in a way – rather beastly.'
He nodded.
'One doesn't really believe in it,' said Despard. 'Not with one's reasoning mind – but these things have their effect. I've seen a good deal of it in East Africa. The witch doctors there have a terrific hold on the people, and one has to admit that odd things happen which can't be explained in any rational manner.'
'Deaths?'
'Oh, yes. If a man knows he's been marked down to die, he dies.'
'The power of suggestion, I suppose.'
'Presumably. '
'But that doesn't quite satisfy you?'
'No – not quite. There are cases difficult of explanation by any of our glib Western scientific theories. The stuff doesn't usually work on Europeans (though I have known cases). But if the belief is there in your blood, you've had it!' He left it there.
I said thoughtfully: 'I agree with you that one can't be too didactic. Odd things happen even in this country. I was at a hospital one day in London. A girl had come in – neurotic subject, complaining of terrible pain in bones, arms, etc. Nothing to account for it. They suspected she was a victim of hysteria. Doctor told her cure could be effected by a red-hot rod being drawn down the arm. Would she agree to try it? She did.
'The girl turned her head away and screwed up her eyes. The doctor dipped a glass rod in cold water and drew it down the inside of her arm. The girl screamed with agony. He said 'You'll be all right now.' She said 'I expect so, but it was awful. It burned.' The queer thing to me was – not that she believed that she had been burned, but that her arm actually was burned. The flesh was actually blistered everywhere the rod had touched it.'
'Was she cured?' Despard asked curiously.
'Oh, yes. The neuritis, or whatever it was, never reappeared. She had to be treated for the burned arm, though.'
'Extraordinary,' said Despard. 'It goes to show, doesn't it?'
'The doctor was startled himself.'
'I bet he was…' He looked at me curiously.
'Why were you really so keen to go to that seance last night?'
I shrugged my shoulders.
'Those three women intrigue me. I wanted to see what sort of show they would put up.'
Despard said no more. I don't think he believed me. As I have said, he was a perceptive man.
Presently I went along to the vicarage. The door was open but there seemed to be no one in the house.
I went to the little room where the telephone was, and rang up Ginger.
