The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  After a pause in this confidential gossip, Peggy suddenly looked down a little shyly, and, turning very pink, asked hesitatingly:

  “Sibyl, dear, you haven’t quarrelled with Mr. Davenant, have you?”

  “Quarrelled, Peggy!” I exclaimed; “of course I haven’t. Have we ever struck you as quarrelsome people?”

  “No, indeed,” she replied. “But you don’t seem to have seen much of one another lately.”

  “No; I haven’t seen Mr. Davenant for quite a long time,” I said.

  She was silent for a while, and I noticed that her cheeks were growing more and more pink.

  “What is my little chameleon turning that colour for?” I asked.

  She looked up at me with a shy smile. “Sibyl,” she said, “don’t think me inquisitive or impertinent. I am your friend, you know, and we are fond of one another, aren’t we?”

  “We are the very best of friends, Peggy, dear, so you needn’t mind asking me anything that you want to know.”

  “Well, then, Sibyl; why don’t you and Mr. Davenant marry? Anyone can see how fond he is of you, and I’m sure you care for him an awful lot, don’t you, now?”

  “My Titmouse is becoming an expert authority on these matters,” said I, thereby converting poor Peggy to the semblance of a corn-poppy.

  “Perhaps I am,” she admitted, defiantly. “But why don’t you marry him, Sibyl?”

  “My dear Peggy,” said I, “there is a very substantial reason. Its name is Mr. Otway.”

  “Sibyl!” gasped Peggy. “I thought you were a widow!”

  I shook my head. “No, Peggy. I am a widow in effect, but a married woman by law. I have a husband who is no husband; whom I married in error, whom I have never lived with and could never think of living with, but whom I can never get rid of. That is the position.”

  She flung her arms around my neck, and laid her cheek to mine.

  “My poor, dear Sibyl,” she exclaimed. “How dreadful for you! I am so frightfully sorry, dear. And is there no end to this?”

  “There is death,” said I. “That is all. And that is why I am not seeing much of Mr. Davenant nowadays.”

  “It is an awful thing, Sibyl,” said she. “You and Mr. Davenant could make one another so perfectly happy.’ And I don’t see why you shouldn’t, for that matter.”

  “Why, how could we, Peggy?”

  Again she blushed scarlet, and with a defiant glance at me, replied:

  “I wouldn’t have my whole life wrecked. I should just go off with him, husband or no husband.”

  “You dreadful little reprobate. And what do you suppose the world would say about you?”

  “It could say what it liked so long as I’d got the man I wanted. But it wouldn’t really say anything. No one with any sense would think a penny the worse of me. Nor would they of you. Everyone would say that you had done the right thing, seeing that you had no choice. You couldn’t be expected to be bound for life to a dummy husband.”

  At this moment I rose from my chair, and going over to the dressing-table, lit a candle. Then I put my hand in my pocket and drew out an unaddressed envelope and a piece of pencil. With the latter I wrote on the envelope my signature and the words “ten minutes to eleven.” The whole proceeding seemed quite automatic. I did not know why I was doing it. I had not known that either the envelope or the pencil was in my pocket, for I had not put them there. But I carried out the train of action almost unconsciously and quite without surprise.

  When I had written on the envelope, I opened it and drew out a piece of paper. On the paper was some writing in an unfamiliar hand. I held the paper near the candle and read as follows:

  “At ten minutes to eleven you will light a candle, take this envelope and a pencil from your pocket; you will write on the envelope your signature and the time. Then you will open the envelope and read this message.”

  I stood for some seconds gazing at the paper in utter amazement. Then I looked round quickly at the clock. It was ten minutes to eleven. From the clock my glance turned to Peggy, who was sitting watching me with a very uncomfortable expression.

  “Do you know anything about this, Peggy?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “That Quecks man told you to do it. He wrote the message and put the envelope and pencil in your pocket when you were in a deep sleep. He spoke the message into your ear, and, after about a minute, told you to wake up, and you woke up immediately. It was like his impudence to perform his beastly experiments without getting your permission first.”

  “It was. But the thing is rather uncanny. I don’t like it at all.”

  “There’s nothing in it,” said Peggy, though she, too, was evidently not pleasantly impressed. “It’s what they call post-hypnotic suggestion. It isn’t in any way super-natural. The doctors know all about it.”

  “Still,” said I, “it is a very strange affair. There is something extremely eerie in finding oneself turned into an unthinking automaton worked by somebody else’s will. And some of the other experiments were rather startling: Miss Morgan’s visions for instance.”

  “Mightn’t they have been just clever guesses?”

  “No, Peggy. That is quite impossible. Her descriptions applied to my case in detail and were correct every time. You heard her describe the view from Maidstone Bridge?”

  “Yes. And I recognised it from that water-colour over your mantelpiece.”

  “Well, don’t you think it very wonderful and incomprehensible?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Peggy. “How do you suppose she did it?

  “I can only imagine that some influence that I don’t understand passed to her from my handkerchief.”

  “Then you imagine wrong,” said the Titmouse. “Your handkerchief was in my pocket all the time. It was my handkerchief that she was smelling at. And her descriptions didn’t fit me the least little bit. I don’t hammer my pottery, you know.”

  “But I don’t understand. You passed her my handkerchief, didn’t you?”

  “No; I passed her mine. You see, I’d seen this handkerchief trick before and I had mine ready, rolled up into a ball in my hand. So it was quite easy to make the exchange. But we may as well change back now.”

  She took a handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to me; and when I had identified it as my own, I produced hers and restored it to her.

  “You are a wicked little baggage, Peggy,” said I, “though I must admit that the ruse was quite a fair one. But still, I don’t quite see how it was done? It was evidently an imposture. But how was it worked? How did she get the information?”

  “Why, she got it from Mr. Quecks, and he got it from Lilith.”

  “You surely don’t suggest that Lilith was a party to this fraud?”

  “Of course I don’t,” she replied, indignantly. “Lilith is a lady to the tips of her fingers. That’s just where it is. She would never suspect. But we know that she wrote to Quecks about you, and she has talked to him about you, and no doubt he has pumped out all that she knows about you. Then you will remember that he has just come back from a tour in Kent—he is almost certain to have been to Maidstone—and there are such things as picture postcards. There is no mystery as to how it was done; but I do wonder that he was such a fool as to do it before Lilith. I suspect she stayed behind to tell him what she thought of him.”

  As we were speaking, Lilith came up the stairs, and I ran out to intercept her and bring her in.

  “You needn’t have waited up for me,” said she, “though I am glad you have, for I want to apologise for Mr. Quecks’ very improper behaviour.”

  “Don’t think any more about it, Lilith,” said I. “It didn’t do any harm, and it has enabled Peggy and me to have a little private séance to ourselves.”

  “Did the post-hypnotic experiment work correctly?”

  “Perfectly—and most uncannily.”

  “Then,” said Lilith, “you have gained by that amount of experience. As to the rest of Mr. Quecks’ experiments—well, Si
byl, I am afraid we must consider them on the plane of public entertainment rather than on that of genuine research. But it is getting late. We had better go to bed now and talk things over tomorrow.”

  This advice was forthwith acted on, as to its first half; and if I owed Mr. Quecks a grudge for trying to impose on me, I should have been grateful to him for giving me something to think about other than my own griefs and entanglements.

  CHAPTER XX

  Cloud and Sunshine

  Reviewing on the morrow my experiences at Mr. Quecks’ house, I was conscious of a rather definite change of outlook. Those experiences had made a very deep impression. The vision that I had seen was something outside ordinary, normal experience, and it still haunted me. And then, even more uncanny, there was that strange automatic action which I had carried out with such perfect unconsciousness and yet so exactly and punctually. It was all very well for Peggy to put it aside with the easy explanation that it was merely post-hypnotic suggestion, and that the doctors knew all about it. That explanation explained nothing. The fact remained that I had suddenly become aware that things which I had been accustomed to dismiss as delusions—as the mere superstitions of credulous people—were actual realities. And this discovery created for me a new standard of possibility and truth. Even Miss Morgan’s visions, though I knew them to be a rank imposture, had left an impression that was not to be completely effaced. The shock of amazement that they had produced at the time left a vague after-effect, due, no doubt, to the more real and equally mysterious experiences.

  Concerning these latter I was somewhat puzzled. It was not quite clear to me how I had come to be hypnotized at all, and I took an early opportunity of questioning Lilith on the subject.

  “There is no mystery about that,” she replied. “The orthodox method of producing the hypnotic trance is to cause the ‘subject’ to gaze steadily at some bright object—a metal button, a crystal, or even a small piece of white paper. He is told to gaze fixedly at this object, to concentrate his attention on it, and to think of nothing else. The purpose of this is to get rid, as far as possible, of the conscious self and to allow the subconscious self to act without disturbance. When this state of mental abstraction has been established, the ‘subject’ is ready to receive suggestions. If the operator suggests to him that he is drowsy, he becomes somnolent; and at the same time he becomes much more susceptible to suggestion. Now, if the operator suggests to him that he feels certain sensations, he feels those sensations. If it is suggested that he performs certain actions, he performs them. This is what happened to you. Mr. Quecks induced you to gaze steadily at the crystal, and when you were in the proper state of mental abstraction, he suggested the hypnotic trance. Then he suggested that you would see a vision of some scene that you had looked on shortly before the funeral, and I understand that you did see such a vision.”

  “Yes, I did; and most astonishingly vivid it was. But, Lilith, when I lit that candle in my room I was not in the hypnotic trance.”

  “No; that was a post-hypnotic phenomenon, and really a most interesting one. To understand it you must think of the two personalities, the conscious self and the subconscious, or subliminal self. Now the suggestions are made to the subconscious self, while the conscious is dormant or in abeyance. But when the conscious self returns or awakens, the subconscious mind continues to work, although unperceived by the conscious mind. If the suggestion refers, as in your case, to some action to be performed at an appointed time, the subconscious keeps account of the passing time and at the appointed moment sets the machinery in motion. The action itself is perceived by the conscious mind, but the train of subconscious thought has been unperceived, though it has really been quite continuous. It is very curious, though not particularly mysterious.”

  “And it is only in the hypnotic trance that these suggestions take effect?”

  That,” replied Lilith, “is not quite clear. It seems that in ordinary sleep suggestions of the kind may sometimes take effect. And for the same reason. In sleep, the conscious self is in abeyance—is out of action; but the subconscious is active, as we see in the case of dreams and still more strikingly in the case of somnambulism. But the postponed effects of suggestions made during normal sleep need more investigation. I believe that sleep produced by drugs is much more like the hypnotic trance than natural sleep.”

  “Well,” I said, “it is all rather weird and uncanny,” and so the subject dropped. But, as I have said, the influence of these strange experiences remained. My former scepticism of the occult and mystical gave place to a state of mind in which I was prepared to admit the possibility of things that I had once regarded as wildly incredible.

  Nevertheless, I was but faintly interested in the wonders of psychical research. Indeed, I was not much interested in anything connected with my daily life. I had endeavoured to revive my enthusiasm for my work by setting myself an ambitious task—a silver candlestick of a semi-ecclesiastical design, worked in repoussé with enrichments in enamel. But all the pleasure in the work was gone. The various processes—skilfully enough executed, as I noticed with tepid satisfaction—which should have been a joy, were but the routine of industry; and through them all the never-ending heartache, the sense of loss, of bereavement, the feeling that the light had gone out of my life for ever. The passing time seemed to bring no mitigation. Rather did it seem to me that every day I missed my dear companion more.

  Perhaps if my loss had been more final—if, for instance, Jasper had been taken from me by Death—I might have striven more determinedly to shape my life anew. But there was a certain inconclusiveness in our separation. Not that I ever, for a moment, considered the possibility of re-opening the question. But still I think there lurked in my mind the feeling that the door was not finally closed. Jasper’s words, “Remember that I am still wanting you, that I am still asking you,” would come to me unbidden, again and yet again, reminding me that the way was still open, that I could end the separation if and when I chose. And then Peggy’s outspoken declaration was not without its effect. For the Titmouse was a very paragon of modesty and maidenly propriety; and when I recalled her robust contempt of conventional points of view I could not help asking myself sometimes if I had not been too prudish.

  All of which was very disturbing. It left me with my resolution unchanged, and yet without that sense of finality that would have set me reconstructing my scheme of life.

  So the weeks dragged by till the time for the first monthly letter drew nigh; and the passionate yearning with which I looked forward to it told me that that letter was a mistake. It ought never to have been. The chapter should have been ended and the volume shut irrevocably.

  As the time for the letter approached, my unrest took me abroad more than usual, and one day, forsaking the sordid east, I took the train to South Kensington and made my way to the Museum, though with no special object in my mind. I had ascended the steps to the main entrance, and was approaching the doorway, when I came face to face with Miss Tallboy-Smith, who was just emerging. At the sight of me she halted with a dramatic gesture of astonishment.

  “Well!” she exclaimed, “so you are really alive! I thought I was never going to see you again. Where have you been? It’s ages—centuries—since I have seen you. And dear Miss Finch, too; whatever has become of her? Were you going into the Museum? I have just been wallowing in the Salting Collection. Delightful, isn’t it? The very kernel of the Museum. Don’t you think so?

  “I don’t think I have ever seen the Salting Collection,” said I.

  “Never seen the Salting Collection!” she gasped. “My dear Mrs. Otway! How dreadful! And you a connoisseur, too. Why, it’s a Paradise; the collectors’ Heaven. Do you believe that people come back after death and frequent their old haunts? I hope it’s true. If it is, I shall come to the Salting Collection. I shall divide my ghosthood between that and the Wallace. It will really be very jolly. Unlimited leisure, with all eternity at one’s disposal. And no stuffy restrictions; no closing
hours or students’ days. So convenient, too! You just pass in through the closed door or the wall and float up the stairs. Why, you could even get inside the glass cases! I’m afraid you’ll think me an awful old heathen; but I’m not really. And how are you? And how is Miss Finch? And why haven’t you been to the club for such an age. And isn’t it dreadful about poor Mr. Davenant?”

  My heart seemed to stand still, and I think I must have turned pale, for Miss Tallboy-Smith said hastily: “I’m afraid I have startled you, Mrs. Otway; but surely—surely—do you mean to tell me that you haven’t even heard about it?”

  “I have heard nothing,” I said, faintly. “Is he—tell me what has happened.”

  “I haven’t had very full particulars,” said she, “but it seems that a cart—or was it a wagon? No, I think it was a cart—and yet I’m not quite sure that it wasn’t—but there! I’m not very dear as to the difference between a cart and a wagon. What is the difference?

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said impatiently. “Tell me what happened.”

  “No,” she agreed, “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Well, it seems that this wagon—but I think it was really a cart—yes, I’m sure it was—at least, I think so—but at any rate it appears that the wagon had run away—that is, of course, it was the horse that had run away, but as he was tied to the cart, it comes to the same thing. And he got on to the pavement—it was in the Strand, somewhere near that shop where they sell those absurd—now what do they call those things? I am getting so silly about names, and it’s quite a common name, too—”