Transmigration

by J. T. McIntosh

  Fletcher, reading between the lines (memory told him nothing directly) had no difficulty in seeing two things behind the verbiage.

  The first was that Searle had been kicked out of the university mainly because he refused, after repeated warnings, to confine himself to his subject and insisted on instructing his students in the mysteries of the occult, psychology, hypnotism, and his personal religious beliefs.

  The second -- and it shone through what the prosecution said, what the defense said, what the newspaper reported of this part of the legal argument and what the Senatus had said -- was that even in 1923, Sir Charles Searle was as mad as a hatter.

  Baudaker, for some reason, not knowing what else the clippings might reveal, chose to defend Searle.

  --All pioneers and freethinkers are regarded as mad.

  Fletcher did not answer. He picked out another yellowed clipping, which turned out to be Searle's statement to the police at the very beginning of the Searle case.

  To say it was of great interest to both Baudaker and Fletcher was an understatement.

  On May 17, 1926, I was driving my car from Penicuik back to Edinburgh. I was alone. The car was functioning perfectly and I was hungry and looking forward to a late dinner. Yet for no reason at all I stopped and got out of the car.

  Annoyed with myself, I tried to get back into the car and drive on. Instead I crossed a field. Behind a large tree I found a small hut. The hut was not visible from the road. In the hut I found a baby. I then knew nothing of babies, but it was clear to me that this male child was only a matter of hours old -- hours rather than days. He had been abandoned and left to die soon after birth and was near to death when I found him, too weak to cry.

  I took the baby to the car and drove on. It was only as I arrived at my house that I realized what a remarkable opportunity this was. Tests had shown that my own telepathic and clairvoyant talent was small. Yet this child, dying of starvation, had been able to reach me and make me save its life. This was an exceptional child, delivered apparently by chance, but not by chance, into the hands of one of the few men in the world capable of understanding and developing such ability.

  In the instant before taking the child inside, I made up my mind. This child was mine. Its parents had left it to die. I had saved it. But if I failed to be circumspect, the infant might not be left in the hands of the man chosen by God to help it fulfill its destiny. This remarkable child would be treated like any other foundling. And the wonderful ability which had summoned me, like the Three Wise Men, would be overborne, smothered, and perhaps entirely defeated by the crass ignorance and stupidity of the modern world; which throws stones at what it does not understand.

  I got the child into the house without being seen, cleaned it, fed it with milk, and hid it in an inner room with both doors locked. That night I found fault with the cook and butler and dismissed them. Later I flew into an assumed temper and discharged all the servants, accusing them of stealing.

  The new servants were all subnormal in one way or another. The two housemaids were both deaf mutes; I did not want them to hear the child's cries. The cook was immensely fat owing to a gland disease and could not climb stairs. The others were mental defectives.

  I knew I could not conceal the very existence of the child . . .

  There, infuriatingly, a piece of the cutting was missing. There had been a fold, and the poor quality paper had fallen off, perhaps many years ago. However, the part which was missing seemed to be short and not very important. At the top of the next column the statement went on:

  . . . four years I have trained this boy to use his mind. As far as possible, human speech has been denied him, because language is an inferior tool of communication employed in default of a purely mental link. He has tried to invent a language of his own, but I have always refused to recognize it.

  Early training was simple. The child had already proved he could summon aid when he was starving. This ability was strengthened by constant repetition. He soon found it much easier to summon the mentally- defective nurse than to contact me. Although at first he had to be literally starving before he was able to break through, by the time he was two years old he could rouse the nurse to bring him a drink of water.

  For further details on the training of the child I refer you to my book "What the Mind Might Do."

  There the statement ended, apparently owing to certain arguments with the police officers who originally took it down. It was a statement unlike any in their experience, and they wanted clarification on many points, and to introduce matters which Searle considered irrelevant. His attitude seemed to be that he would make a statement as full as anyone could wish, but he had to be allowed to do it in his own way or not at all.

  In particular, he wanted to give details of his experiment, and the police wanted a confession of what he had done to a nameless boy who had been a prisoner for four years entirely in the power of a man with an idée fixe.

  --That's why you hate all tests! Baudaker burst out excitedly.

  --It could'well be, replied Fletcher drily.

  --But how can it be that you don't remember? A boy of four isn't a baby.

  --Well, Fletcher is dead. I took forward only limited memories. What Fletcher remembered or might have remembered is of no more than academic interest now. Then, doesn't memory depend a lot on language? Searle's statement begins: On May 17, 1926, I was driving my car from Penicuik back to Edinburgh. Without language, what substance would be in that memory?

  --I see what you mean.

  It was Fletcher rather than Baudaker who turned back to the review of the book "What the Mind Might Do." The review was long and unsympathetic. The reviewer could not know what he was reviewing, because the book had come out before the Searle case. He could not know, especially, that Searle took telepathy for granted because he knew it existed, and that his experiments in telepathic development were not theoretical, but a statement of what he was actually trying out.

  The review contained little information about the contents of the book, and Fletcher soon pushed it aside.

  The next Searle case clipping was baffling: it concerned long, legal argument on the charges against Searle. It, too, was put to one side for the moment.

  Big headlines leaped from the next sheet: SCOTT MONUMENT HORROR. A man, not named, had been arrested after holding a screaming boy out in space over the top gallery of the 200 foot monument. Charges would be preferred . . .

  That, apparently, was the start of the Searle case.

  It was also, Fletcher realized, beginning to hate Searle with a cold, sick loathing, the start of his terror of heights.

  Looking back, Fletcher saw that the story of Sir Charles Searle's arrest and the report of the "Scott Monument horror" were from the same issue. Either the police or the newspaper editor had decided not to reveal the link at once.

  The argument over the charges made more sense now. Although Searle himself was the main authority for what had been done to the nameless child in the case between May 17, 1926, and May 22, 1930, on Friday, May 23, 1930, Searle was seen by several witnesses holding the boy over the fearful gulf between the top gallery of the Scott Monument, Edinburgh, and the ground far below, and had to be dragged back with his burden.

  This constituted assault at least. It might be attempted murder. It might be many things, but even if nothing else could be proved, Searle had terrified a four-year-old boy in a melodramatic way which partly explained the strong public feeling which the trial aroused.

  Searle, throughout, never believed he had done anything wrong. He said of the Scott Monument incident: "The boy could command me. He had proved it. You simply don't understand. I never had the very slightest intention of harming him, obviously. As he grew older, it became increasingly difficult to find stimuli strong enough to make him apply himself fully. This experiment was designed to force him to take complete control of me, for his own safety. . . . "

  At another point he said: "I don't understand. The child had al
ready proved that when he was hungry he had the capacity to communicate mentally. I merely reinforced this caparty, hoping to train him to communicate with his mind instead of his voice. He was fed regularly as a rule. It was only occasionally, at irregular intervals, that he was given no food until he sent a mental summons. . . . I repeat, a gifted child of this type could come to no harm in these conditions. I don't understand these accusations of cruelty and neglect. The boy has always had the very best of attention. . . . "

  Later: "Of course he was denied the normal upbringing of a normal child. He is not a normal child. My purpose? I should have thought that would have been obvious. Children of exceptional musical talent have often been denied normal upbringing. Child actors are denied normal upbringing. This child is a telepath. Was such supernormal ability to be suppressed? Are we still living in the Dark Ages amid fear of the unknown?"

  Only once, hesitantly, did Searle admit a certain doubt. "Yes, I used hypnosis. I think that may have been a mistake. The boy had no words, and in employing hypnosis I had to permit him some. That in itself was a mistake. However, I felt it was necessary to condition him to certain godly attitudes toward lust, toward pride, and toward good and evil generally. I did not want the boy to fear me, but to fear God. Such talent had to be used for good. It was unthinkable that the boy's immense potential should be allowed to turn toward evil, or be allowed to dissipate itself, in future years, in womanizing . . . "

  It was at about this point that the atmosphere changed. Throughout, Sir Charles Searle had been regarded as an inhuman monster, yet he acted and spoke so calmly and lucidly that doubts of his sanity never came into the foreground. It could be held that no sane man could do what he had done, but it could likewise be held that no sane man could commit motiveless murder, and in 1930 all murderers who were not foaming at the mouth were automatically executed.

  Looking at the forty-year-old cuttings with a certain detachment, Fletcher and Baudaker could both sense the change that came over the trial of Sir Charles Searle. If he had gone on acting sanely, the case would have been a hopeless snarl of what might or might not be crimes against a nameless foundling of four. Searle might have been sentenced to three years in jail, perhaps more, probably less, because not much was certain except that he had held a child over a terrifying drop, with no apparent intention of actually letting him fall. And the 52-year-old ex-lecturer in Greek might be a fanatic, but he was not and had never been what was commonly considered a criminal.

  When he stopped being lucid, however, when his calm certainty that he had done no wrong cracked, his whole story from the very first statement began to show itself as the ravings of a madman.

  And suddenly the trial was over. The court heard from a doctor that the accused had gone completely out of his mind. No psychiatrists gave evidence in that May 1930 court. Insanity was simpler then.

  Sir Charles Searle was committed without limit of time to an asylum. And it was cailcd, bluntly, an asylum then, not a sanatorium or a nursing home. Sir Charles Searle was a lunatic, and that explained everything. End of case.

  The cuttings had nothing more to tell of the madman who had been Sir Charles Searle or the boy who was to become John Fletcher.

  --There's a lot more to be found out, Baudaker observed thoughtfully as he emerged into the sunlight.

  --There's nothing more to be found out.

  Astonished, Baudaker replied --But we've scarcely begun to . . .

  --We've finished.

  Sitting in Princes Street gardens, Fletcher looked up at the 200 foot spire of the Scott Monument and shuddered. He did not want even to think about what he had learned, but something had to be done about Baudaker's frantic urge to go on probing into the events of forty years ago.

  --I've got all the clues. I'm no longer interested.

  --But you must . . .

  --Baudaker, you know how I've grown to hate Searle for what he did to me in the last hour or so. If you want me to hate you with something of the same virulence, just go on the way you're doing.

  Baudaker, shocked and hurt, made no reply.

  More gently, having made the effect he had intended to make, Fletcher went on.

  --You may not have the answers to all your questions, but I have all the answers to mine. I know why I became what I was, and whom to thank for it. There's nothing more I want to know.

  Because he was aware that Baudaker was incapable of leaving it at that, he filled in a few details. --I know why I fear heights. I know why women were banned to me, I know why I didn't remember: Searle's hypnosis helped to block off the early memories that were vague in the first place since I was denied language. Searle's first and greatest crime against me was saving my life.

  He went on for quite a while, sometimes chaotically, sometimes pensively, setting things in place for himself and for Baudaker.

  --I think we have to get it clear that Searle is partly right and partly wrong. I did have certain talent, and he did help to develop it. But he used his power in fanatic ways . . . tried to make me his idea of a Christian . . .

  When he thought he had said enough, he stopped.

  Baudaker was far from satisfied.

  --We must at least consult the fuller cuttings of the "Mail" and the "News." And we could see Mr. Curran again and . . .

  --Baudaker, for God's sake, leave me alone.

  Fletcher's silence after that drove Baudaker frantic. It was Fletcher who left the hotel and got back on the train. Occasionally he did answer Baudaker, but whenever Baudaker tried to talk about the only thing that interested him, Fletcher shut up like a clam.

  It was late on Monday evening when Baudaker arrived at the maisonette. And Fletcher at once snapped back into contact with him.

  --Coincidence again, he observed drily.

  --Eh? What?

  --You didn't notice the car parked on the other side of the street. Look at it.

  It was Baudaker's old Morris. Baudaker stared at it blankly.

  --What's it doing there? Gerry can't drive.

  --I suspect it's the getaway car.

  --What do you mean?

  --It's only a guess. But I'm fairly sure Gerry is running away. With Sheila, of course.

  "Running away," Baudaker muttered. "Like Paula."

  This was the one thing he had never told Fletcher, and Fletcher had never probed.

  --Paula ran away?

  --For weeks she'd been jumpy . . . then she disappeared. She left a note asking me not to report her missing, so I didn't. She was away six months. Then she came back, looking ill. Three days later she put her head in the gas oven.

  Once again Fletcher wanted to tun away. Was there nothing in the world but failure, inadequacy, insanity, suicide, and cruelty? Even Baudaker and his Paula, whom he knew to have been in general an extremely happy couple, had been parted by tragedy, and not tragedy from outside but tragedy created by themselves.

  Anyway, it was necessary to go into the house.

  --There's a girl with Gerry. Sheila, of course.

  --You know? You can sense . . . ?

  Fletcher retorted irritably: I know. Never mind how. I'm telling you this is a crisis. And I return opportunely. Of course.

  --A crisis?

  --Go in.

  The front door was seldom used. Baudaker went round to the back, as usual.

  Fletcher took over. He had never been a man of action, a man of decision, yet he was far more able to handle any crisis than was Baudaker.

  The house was a shambles. In the lounge, Gerry and Sheila were packing large, new traveling cases. They were throwing in everything of value. They looked up in consternation as Baudaker entered.