The Necromancers - Robert Hugh Benson (100 best novels of all time txt) 📗

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"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 arm-chair, 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.


Chapter 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. He went round to the fire, wondering vaguely as to why he had not been shown upstairs, and stood, warming his hands behind him, and looking at the pleasant gloom of the high picture-hung walls.

In spite of himself he felt slightly more excited than he had thought he would be; it was one thing to be philosophical at a prospect of three days' distance; and another when the gates of death actually rise in sight. He wondered in what mood he would see his own rooms again. Then he yawned slightly--and was a little pleased that it was natural to yawn.

There was a rustle outside; the door opened, and Lady Laura slipped in.

"Forgive me, Mr. Baxter," she said. "I wanted to have just a word with you first. Please sit down a moment."

She seemed a little anxious and upset, thought Laurie, as he sat down and looked at her in her evening dress with the emblematic chain more apparent than ever. Her frizzed hair sat as usual on the top of her head, and her pince-nez glimmered at him across the hearthrug like the eyes of a cat.

"It is this," she said hurriedly. "I felt I must just speak to you. I wasn't sure whether you quite realized the ... the dangers of all this. I didn't want you to ... to run any risks in my house. I should feel responsible, you know."

She laughed nervously.

"Risks? Would you mind explaining?" said Laurie.

"There ... there are always risks, you know."

"What sort?"

"Oh ... you know ... nerves, and so on. I ... I have seen people very much upset at seances, more than once."

Laurie smiled.

"I don't think you need be afraid, Lady Laura. It's awfully kind of you; but, do you know, I'm ashamed to say that, if anything, I'm rather bored."

The pince-nez gleamed.

"But--but don't you believe it? I thought Mr. Vincent said--"

"Oh yes, I believe it; but, you know, it seems to me so natural now. Even if nothing happens tonight, I don't think I shall believe it any the less."

She was silent an instant.

"You know there are other risks," she said suddenly.

"What? Are things thrown about?"

"Please don't laugh at it, Mr. Baxter. I am quite serious."

"Well--what kind do you mean?"

Again she paused.

"It's very awful," she said; "but, you know, people's nerves do break down entirely sometimes, even though they're not in the least afraid. I saw a case once--"

She stopped.

"Yes?"

"It--it was a very awful case. A girl--a sensitive--broke down altogether under the strain. She's in an asylum."

"I don't think that's likely for me," said Laurie, with a touch of humor in his voice. "And, after all, you run these risks, don't you--and Mrs. Stapleton?"

"Yes; but you see we're not sensitives. And even I--"

"Yes?"

"Well, even I feel sometimes rather overcome.... Mr. Baxter, do you quite realize what it all means?"

"I think so. To tell the truth--"

He stopped.

"Yes; but the thing itself is really overwhelming.... There's--there's an extraordinary power sometimes. You know I was with Maud Stapleton when she saw her father--"

She stopped again.

"Yes?"

"I saw him too, you know.... Oh! there was no possibility of fraud. It was with Mr. Vincent. It--it was rather terrible."

"Yes?"

"Maud fainted.... Please don't tell her I told you, Mr. Baxter; she wouldn't like you to know that. And then other things happen sometimes which aren't nice. Do you think me a great coward? I--I think I've got a fit of nerves tonight."

Laurie could see that she was trembling.

"I think you're very kind," he said, "to take the trouble to tell me all this. But indeed I was quite ready to be startled. I quite understand what you mean--but--"

"Mr. Baxter, you can't understand unless you've experienced it. And, you know, the other day here you knew nothing at all: you were not conscious. Now tonight you're to keep awake; Mr. Vincent's going to arrange to do what he can about that. And--and I don't quite like it."

"Why, what on earth can happen?" asked Laurie, bewildered.

"Mr. Baxter, I suppose you realize that it's you that they--whoever they are--are interested in? There's no kind of doubt that you'll be the center tonight. And I did just want you to understand fully that there are risks. I shouldn't like to think--"

Laurie stood up.

"I understand perfectly," he said. "Certainly, I always knew there were risks. I hold myself responsible, and no one else. Is that quite clear?"

The wire of the front-door bell suddenly twitched in the hall, and a peal came up the stairs.

"He's come," said the other. "Come upstairs, Mr. Baxter. Please don't say a word of what I've said."

She hurried out, and he after her, as the footman came up from the lower regions.

* * * * *


The drawing-room presented an unusual appearance to Laurie as he came in. All the small furniture had been moved away to the side where the windows looked into the street, and formed there what looked like an amateur barricade. In the center of the room, immediately below the electric light, stood a solid small round table with four chairs set round it as if for Bridge. There was on the side further from the street a kind of ante-room communicating with the main room by a high, wide archway nearly as large as the room to which it gave access; and within this, full in sight, stood a curious erection, not unlike a confessional, seated within for one, roofed, walled, and floored with thin wood. The front of this was open, but screened partly by two curtains that seemed to hang from a rod within. The rest of the little extra room was entirely empty except for the piano that stood closed in the corner.

There were two persons standing rather disconsolately on the vacant hearthrug--Mrs. Stapleton and the clergyman whom Laurie had met on his last visit here. Mr. Jamieson wore an expression usually associated with