The decisive factor was a very respectable sum of money that the society offered him. For Wiscott’s uncertain health had kept him from practicing his profession for quite some time—he was an engineer in a factory—and the sanatorium was expensive. So he conceded a willingness to exploit his newly discovered ability in the interests of keeping afloat. Moreover, he was under pressure from his gambling debts.
Wiscott, as soon as he was brought into a spiritualist environment and went into a trance, was another person. We might say he was not a single person at all but several, the potential to be many, depending on the figures from the beyond he made contact with. In this contact with the beyond he completely lost his own personality, melted, and received, like wax, impressions from the other side. It is easy to understand how exhausted he was at the end of his sittings, and how hard it was for him to get used to the process.
His revelations, or performances, if you prefer to put it that way, caused a sensation among the public as well. The society’s acquisition of this medium was a good move. Everyone marveled at Wiscott, “the psychic telescope,” and wanted to take a peek through this curious tube at least once.
The events proceeded entirely undisturbed for a while, but after the death (or murder) of van Steen, the brewery owner, they took on a tempestuous character and, to get right to the point, came to a sensational end.
Van Steen, a member of the spiritualist society himself, was found dead one morning in a hotel in the city (he lived in a mansion on the outskirts of town), with a gaping wound in his head and his money and all his valuables stolen. The murderer or murderess had had the gall to pay a visit to the victim’s mansion afterward, opening the doors and unlocking the locks with the keys the victim had had on his person. Strangely, the thief’s interest was drawn not to money or jewelry but to . . . laundry. All the freshly washed pajamas, dress shirts, bathrobes, and towels had disappeared. Even more bizarre was the situation in van Steen’s hotel room. There on the carpet lay the fat and jolly brewer: dead, in a pool of blood, and bizarrely decked out. It was like the scene in Puccini’s Tosca where the heroine, after stabbing the tyrant, piously places candles and flowers around him. Something similar had happened here, except that it was far from an act of piety. On his head van Steen had a paper hat, folded out of a sheet of newspaper the way children do it. Flowers had been put in his hand and more flowers draped over his ears. The most striking thing was that his boots had been taken off and placed upright, next to his feet—one right, one left—and in each boot was . . . a hotel napkin. The windows were wide open, two upper panes had been broken in, and the curtains had been ripped aside at just that height.
The police did not have it easy. First of all, they were wartime replacements. And the bizarre crime had been committed in an old, sprawling, confusingly laid out commuter hotel with people streaming in and out essentially unsupervised from morning until night.
When the police got nowhere, what recourse would more readily suggest itself to the spiritualist friends of the victim than that they investigate the mysteries of the case in their own fashion, aiming their living telescope, Wiscott, at the dead man’s ghost? Furthermore, several aspects of the situation made them uneasy. They wanted to ask the brewery owner’s ghost to give the necessary explanations himself. If anyone knew what had happened to him, he did. The society duly informed the police of their intentions, and they gave the society their blessing. It was fine with them.
Again, Wiscott balked. They had thought they were giving him a great opportunity, but he was resistant. Would van Steen want to be channeled in the first place? he said. Maybe he wouldn’t? Maybe he had good and valid reasons not to want to make a statement about the delicate situation. He could compromise someone, perhaps a lady. Then Wiscott tried to get out of the situation with the following argument: Clearly spirits had themselves played a role in the murder, as the broken windowpanes and torn curtain proved. This could be a spirit murder. He was afraid to get involved. Finally, he tried saying that he did not like making contact with the recently deceased, and an acquaintance of his at that—it was impossible to predict how the spirit might react. He did not like the idea of an encounter with van Steen, not that he had anything against him. And such a bloodstained ghost too. The society tried to help him overcome his naiveté, but still he balked.
At this point, the rumor that the spiritualists were offering their services to the police reached the public. Naturally the newspapers made a big thing out of it. Then someone turned up in the society’s office: one Miss Dutort, a Canadian, Mademoiselle Eveline from the big variety theater in the city, a beautiful and much talked of lady. She asked to be allowed to speak with the medium, Mr. Wiscott, concerning the matter that had been reported in the press. She spoke to the society president, one Mr. Valley, a gray-bearded gentleman who worked for the post office, who had no objections to arranging a meeting in his office, and who had a slight ulterior motive, namely that Wiscott would surely not resist the public when it presented itself to him in such a form. Just before she was due to return that afternoon, Valley remembered with a shock that he had read her name, Eveline Dutort, in connection with the van Steen case: The soubrette lived in the hotel where the murder had taken place, in a room on the third floor, like the brewery owner; she knew him, had admitted to having supper with him often, but had said that she hadn’t seen him on the night in question.
The encounter between the two in the society offices went quite strangely. The soubrette, a short, curvaceous, and very flirty specimen of womanhood in a luxurious sable coat, her dark hair uncovered by a hat, stepped resolutely up to the medium. He was sitting comfortably on the tabletop, swinging his legs back and forth, and did not change his position while the president introduced the lady. He nodded at her, uninterested. Valley timidly announced that the lady wished to present Mr. Wiscott with a request.
She: “Mr. Wiscott, I would like to ask you to undertake the attempt to contact the murder victim, van Steen. I ask you most fervently. You know why. But I am innocent. I know absolutely nothing about these horrific events, even though people keep trying to say I was involved.”
Wiscott (oily as ever): “Fine. Done.”
Valley: “What do you mean, Wiscott? You’ll do it?”
He, bowing to the luxurious Eveline with an indefinable smile, announced his decision to her: “Miss Dutort, I think we’ll do it— even if it is risky.”
With that, he slipped down from the table where he had been sitting and strolled around the room, while the lady gave no sign of leaving, so that after a silent pause there was nothing for Valley to do but ask whether she still had something on her mind. Yes, she said, might she ask to speak to Mr. Wiscott for a few minutes alone? Amazed, the medium crossed his arms, and Valley and he exchanged glances.
“I’m only looking out for myself,” sobbed Eveline. “I don’t know where else to turn. They’re talking about canceling my contract.”
“Oh,” Wiscott said, gesturing with his hand at the side door. He opened it for the soubrette, who stepped quickly into the society’s little library. What took place between the two in there is not known to us, except that Eveline (as Wiscott told the president after the interview) passionately, bringing numerous personal arguments to bear, beseeched him . . . not to proceed with the experiment. That’s right, now she wanted him not to do it. Of course this only strengthened his resolve.
He left the library looking calm; she emerged with a red face and a bitter expression on it. She cast one last questioning look at his impassive face and rushed off.
That night, when Valley told his friends about the incident, they were uneasy and said that now Wiscott might be biased. He smiled. “Biased? But you know Wiscott. Not a word he says comes from him.”
•
First session:
Wiscott had dressed with particular elegance and even stuck a camellia—the flower associated with the dead—in his buttonhole, as an identifying mark for the brewery owner, he explaine
d.
When the channeled spirit spoke, it turned out that it wasn’t the right one, but a stranger. It seemed to be a man from Glasgow, and he was very polite, asking what time it was and how everyone was doing, and apologizing when he realized that he was not the one they wanted. He picked up his hat and disappeared, with the comment that this had often happened to him.
When they woke Wiscott up, he sleepily remarked that he had already encountered the man many times. He was always standing around everywhere and butting in. Wiscott thought he was a dog-biscuit manufacturer; the company no longer existed.
The next spirit the medium channeled, equally erroneously, was harder to get rid of than the man from Glasgow. He said he had been waiting a long time and had something important to say. People channeled every spirit under the sun but no one ever paid any attention to him.
They all knew this eager man. He was from E. He said his piece and the protests from the group—that they had gathered for another purpose and had more important things to do than listen to him—had no effect on him. During his life that had now thank God come to an end, he rudely explained, he had taken out a life insurance policy to benefit his sister. The money was explicitly stipulated to go to his sister as her own private property. Instead, exactly as he had predicted, his brother-in-law had pocketed the money. The spirit went on and on about this brother-in-law, using the most offensive and obscene turns of phrase.
Now this brother-in-law—an enthusiastic spiritualist, who had in fact funded the meeting in progress—was there, which was clearly why the spirit had turned up. The living man raised a violent outcry. What did the spirit want anyway. Without him, he never would have been channeled in the first place. He protested against the shameless and unjustified intrusion of the spirit, against the sad disarray of the beyond, against the misuse of the spiritualist society for private ends, etc. It was outrageous to bring up this private matter here, not to mention that the spirit was misrepresenting it in every detail, and he, the living man, advised the dead man to give a little more thought to his posthumous reputation, which was already looking quite a lot the worse for wear.
The excited spirit replied to this barrage in confused and exorbitant terms. When the discussion degenerated into a savage cursing match between this side and the beyond, the president had no choice but to wake up the medium, however unwillingly, and ask him to start over (also in consideration of the police representative there, who wanted to see the murder case dealt with). It was the wrong one again, he said, and however fascinated by spirits one might be, this was one they could do without. Even from the dead, one had the right to expect a certain respect for social proprieties.
But the rage of the brother-in-law and heir was so great, even afterward, as was the back and forth over whether they shouldn’t have heard the spirit out after all, since otherwise he could just come right back and interrupt them again, that in the end the medium himself asked to terminate the session. Incidentally, he said, they could see how right he had been to warn them about channeling the brewery owner. They were stirring up a hornet’s nest. Still more serious incidents were in store. But if they insisted. . . .
They insisted. For even these failed attempts had made the society’s members hungry to learn more about the nature and organization of the beyond, and the medium was clearly in superb form. Things on the other side obviously proceeded much more naturally than one had imagined. For example, said old Valley, the president, they could now see that the spirits stood around in groups on the other side, waiting for someone to bring them news, like people in remote mountain villages. Naturally there wasn’t much interchange, at least there hadn’t been until now. Certain mix-ups were the result, such as the appearance of the wrong spirits. When mail came for someone, everyone else crowded around and thought there might be something in there for them.
To help Wiscott regain his equilibrium, they scheduled a public session with the usual offerings, which went well. Then came the next session concerning the case of van Steen.
This time he appeared right away. But then something came up that no one was expecting. They wanted to ask the spirit for information about the murder, but he knew nothing—not even that he was dead. That was the limit! All kinds of things had happened at the society’s conjurations, but for a spirit not even to know that he was a spirit was something new. The channeled van Steen did in fact act completely lively, behaving exactly how his fellow society members remembered him. When, in accord with the president’s wishes, the medium insisted and repeated that van Steen really was a spirit, van Steen demanded they stop playing games with him. He didn’t like it, he had a weak heart, jokes like that could kill him.
So they proceeded with caution. After all, what could they do if a channeled spirit had health problems in the middle of a session, maybe even suffered a heart attack? How would they get rid of him? And if he died . . . the medium, with a dead ghost . . . inconceivable. They were learning, and seeing ever more clearly, what wrong ideas they had had about spirits, and how naturally things proceeded in the beyond as well.
They brought up only the fact that, three weeks ago, van Steen “had left the city” (since they had to sidle their way up to the murder somehow).
Yes, he said, that’s true, he could no longer stand it in this dirty and depraved backwater.
Now this provoked the hometown pride of several of those present. They wanted to answer back. The president knew how to keep them under control: He tapped his forehead with his finger, they mustn’t think the spirit was all there, he was after all in a very unusual condition.
Then, through the medium’s mouth, van Steen told the assembled listeners that he had taken a trip and currently found himself “somewhere else.” He said it in a mysterious, arrogant voice: “somewhere else.” He clearly did not feel it worth his while to reveal to the philistines here, his former fellow society members, where it might be.
The society president answered politely: That was exactly why, because he had taken a trip and they hadn’t had news from him for so long, that was why they had made this attempt to contact him, with the excellent assistance of Wiscott, with whom of course he was well acquainted.
At this van Steen let out a rather contemptuous sniff. Valley had touched on a sore point. As we know, the medium had already said beforehand that he did not feel entirely comfortable with van Steen. Well, van Steen didn’t like him either. Clearly an inner debate, a private conversation between spirit and medium, was in progress. They could hear an indistinct whisper. The medium turned and shrugged. He seemed to be having an argument with the brewery owner. How would it turn out? But everything was smoothed over and van Steen, now apparently reconciled to his fate, came out nonchalantly with a strange declaration.
Of course he knew Wiscott, and knew the profession he practiced. But things were not nearly as simple as they all imagined. They probably thought they had channeled him through Wiscott (whom he suddenly started calling his good friend). They had channeled him? Wiscott needed to just come clean with them. No one had channeled him, the brewer, he didn’t let himself be channeled by anyone, especially not in a filthy little backwater like this (he wouldn’t stop with that). No, it was the other way around. There, on the other side, this boondocks, E., came to his mind for some reason and he felt like taking another look at the lamentable conditions in which he had spent a small portion of his time on earth, brewing beer, of course, what else, what could the people here do besides get drunk to try to escape their misery. In short, he and a few friends on the other side had conjured the society, channeled them, and here it was and now he wanted to ask a couple of the people present about their condition, their domestic arrangements. He wanted to explain a few things to them, posthumously too, which would not be uninteresting for them and their families.
This caused a great commotion in the society. They were all firmly convinced spiritualists, but only in one direction: For the beyond to channel them was a frightening prospect. Also, several m
embers were leery of the threatened explanations. The door was flung open. Light poured in. While everyone stood up, Wiscott remained seated, in a trance, gesticulating and whispering. It took some time to wake him up; the other side simply had him in too tight a grip. Finally, next to the open windows, Wiscott shuddered, looked around in embarrassment, laughed in embarrassment, and apologized. They felt it was their duty to explain to him what had just happened. They repeated some of van Steen’s remarks. Wiscott hummed and reflected: He had had the feeling for a long time that something unpleasant like that was going to happen. It was clear to him that we on this side and they on that side were working toward each other, like people building a tunnel, and so they on that side could easily come to the conclusion that it was they who were channeling this side. All this fit well with the basic ideas and general understanding of the president. The society, incidentally, was called Clear Passage.
Of course Wiscott’s remarks only stirred up the spiritualist club’s sporting zeal, and they could not wait to come to the next session.
•
The time came. The brewer appeared at once, with a jolt, so to speak: “Here we are.”
This time van Steen had come with a whole group. Yes, he had brought a gang of spirits with him, and they all spoke through the medium, or at least tried to speak through the medium, who obviously couldn’t handle such an onslaught. They talked over one another. Shouts of “Shh!” came from this side and the other side. Van Steen tried to assert himself but couldn’t. Incidentally, before the session, with a premonition of what was to come, Wiscott had asked to be freed from his usual armchair and permitted to sit on the more comfortable chaise longue with his back against the wall. There he sat, surrounded by society members, but he soon had to lie down and now he talked, whispered, giggled, and protested as the spirits bade him, now in a higher voice, now lower. It was not always easy to tell the voices apart.
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