The Heart Line 14

The Heart Line 14

The lady, straightening herself upon being thus addressed, said timidly,

"I think perhaps you mean my uncle. His name was John."

 

"Maybe it is an uncle, though I get the influence of a father very

strong, too. Has your father passed out?"

 

The lady in the red hat nodded.

 

"Then it _is_ your father, do you see? Yes, I get an uncle, too, who

wishes to communicate, only his influence ain’t strong enough. That

shows it ain’t mind reading, as the newspaper folks say, don’t it?" She

smiled, as if she had made a point, and the audience appeared to be

impressed.

 

"About this journey, now: maybe you ain’t had no idea of traveling, but

John says you will. I don’t think it’s liable to be very far, though.

It’ll be before the last of September or the first of October and John

says it’ll be successful. Do you understand what I mean?"

 

The lady, frightened at the terrible import of this question, did not

speak.

 

"Did you send up an article?"

 

"It’s that purse with the chain."

 

Madam Spoll fingered it and weighed it reflectively.

 

"I get a condition of what you might call inharmony. Seems to me like in

your home something is worrying you and you ain’t satisfied, you

understand, with the way things are going and sometimes you feel as if,

well, you just couldn’t stand it!" Her smile, now, bathed her dupe with

sympathy.

 

The lady nodded vigorously, with tightly shut lips.

 

"You kind of wonder if it does any good for you to go to all the trouble

you do to sacrifice yourself and try to do your duty, when it ain’t what

you might call appreciated. And you’re worried about money, too. Ain’t

that so?"

 

She received a ready assent. The woman’s eyes were fixed upon her.

Every one in the room watched the stripping naked of a soul.

 

"Well, John says that your father and him are helping you all they can

on the spirit plane, and he thinks conditions will be more favorable and

will take a turn for the better by the first of the year."

 

A question fluttered on the woman’s lips, but before it had time to

escape, Madam Spoll suddenly turned in the other direction.

 

"While I was talking to that lady," she said, "I felt an influence

leading me to that corner over there by the clock, and I get the

initials ’S.F.B.’ Is there anybody of that name over there?"

 

A flashily dressed woman, with tinted yellow hair and rhinestone

ear-rings, raised her hand.

 

"Those are my initials," she announced.

 

Madam Spoll grew impressive. "Your name is Brindon, ain’t it?"

 

The woman gasped out a "Yes."

 

"Did I ever see you before?"

 

"No," said the blonde, "not to my knowledge, you didn’t."

 

Madam Spoll made a comprehensive gesture with both hands, calling

attention to the miracle. "You sent up a sealed ballot, didn’t you?"

 

The woman nodded. She was obviously excited, looking as if she feared

her skeleton was to be dragged forth from its closet; as indeed it was.

 

Madam Spoll took up the envelope with her delicate thumb and forefinger

and displayed it to the audience.

 

"You see, it’s still sealed," she announced, then, shutting her eyes,

she continued: "My guides tell me that he’s what you might call

infatuated, but he’ll come back to you and say he’s sorry. Do you

understand that?"

 

The woman was now painfully embarrassed and shrank into her seat. The

medium, however, did not spare her. It was too good a chance for a

dramatic sensation. She tore the envelope open and read its contents

boldly: "Does he care more for Mae Phillips than he does for me?" It

was a psychological moment. The old women stared at Mrs. Brindon with

morbid delight. There was a little buzzing of whispers through the

room. Then the audience prepared itself for the next sensation.

 

The medium picked up another envelope. "This is marked ’275,’" she

said, then she clutched her throat. "Oh," she cried, "I’m strangling!

They’s somebody here who passed out very sudden, like they was poisoned.

It’s terrible. I can’t answer the question the party has written

because there’s an evil influence here, a wicked woman. She had three

husbands and two of ’em died suspicious. Her name is Riley. Would that

be you?" She pointed forcefully at a dried-up, old woman in a shawl,

with bleared eyes and a veined nose.

 

There was no response.

 

"Was this question something about your daughter?" Madam Spoll asked.

 

The woman coughed and bowed, shrinking into herself.

 

"I guess you better go somewhere else for your readings," Madam Spoll

declared cruelly. "Your aura don’t seem to me to be very harmonious. I

don’t know what’s the matter to-night," she went on, passing her hand

across her forehead in apparent distress. "The conditions around me are

something horrid." Her voice rose. "There’s somebody in this very room

here who has committed murder. I can’t do a thing until I get that off

my mind. My guides tell me who it is, and that they’ll be satisfied if

he’ll acknowledge it and say he’s sorry. Otherwise, this séance can’t

go on."

 

She stopped and glared about the hall. By this time she had worked her

audience up to an intense excitement. Every one looked at his neighbor,

wondering what was to come, but no one offered to confess to a crime.

Madam Spoll raged up and down the platform in a frenzy. Then she

stopped like an elephant at bay.

 

"I know who this person is. It’s a man, and if he don’t rise and

acknowledge it, I shall point him out!"

 

No one stirred. On the fourth seat, a clean-shaven man of thirty-five,

with sharp, aquiline features and wide-spread ears, sat, transfixed with

horror, his two hands clenched. It was Mr. Perry, the cleverest actor

in the medium’s support.

 

She advanced toward him as if drawn by a secret power, stared into his

eyes, and putting her hand upon his shoulder, said:

 

"Thou art the man!"

 

Mr. Perry wriggled out of her grasp. "See here," he cried, "you mind

your own business, will you. You’re a fake! You got no right to make a

fool of me." His voice trembled, his face was a convincing mask of

guilt arraigned.

 

The medium shook a warning finger at him. "You either acknowledge what

I say is true, or you leave the hall! I can’t go on with you here."

 

Mr. Spoll came in to stand beside her valiantly; spectators stood up to

watch the drama. Mr. Perry’s eyes were wild, his face distorted;

suddenly he arose and rushed out of the room. Madam Spoll snapped her

fingers two or three times, shook herself and went back to the platform.

The murmurs died down and the séance was resumed.

 

Madam Spoll waited a while in silence, then she picked up a gold watch

with a seal fob from the table. "I’m glad to feel a more peaceful

influence," she said. "I’m directed toward this watch. I don’t know who

brought it up, for I was out of the room at the time, but I get the name

’Oliver.’" She looked up expectantly.

 

A gentleman arose from an end seat in the third row. He had a high

domed head, partly bald, and a gray chin-beard with a shaven upper lip;

under shaggy overhanging eyebrows, cold gray eyes looked through a pair

of gold-rimmed spectacles. His air was benevolently judicial and

bespoke culture and ease. He had, moreover, a well-marked presence, as

of one used to being considered influential and prominent. A row of

false teeth glittered when he opened his mouth.

 

"That’s my name," he acknowledged in a deep, fluent voice that was heard

all over the room, "and that is my watch."

 

Madam Spoll fixed him in the eye. "I’d like to know if I can’t get your

other name. My guides are very strong to-night." After a few moments

of self-absorption, she smiled sweetly upon him. "I think I can get it

clairaudiently. Would it be Pearson?"

 

"No, but that’s pretty near it, though."

 

"It sounds like Pearson to me, Pearson. Payson, oh, yes, it’s Payson,

isn’t it?"

 

"That’s right," he said, and sat down.

 

"Did I ever see you before?"

 

"Not to my knowledge, Madam."

 

She looked triumphantly at her audience and smiled.

 

"If they’s any skeptics here to-night, I hope they’ll go away

satisfied." A number of old ladies nodded emphatically. "Of course,

newspaper men never come on a night like this, when my guides are

strong. Funny what you see when you ain’t got a gun, ain’t it? The next

time I’m half sick and tired out, they’ll be plenty of them here to say

I’m a fake, like our friend here who left so sudden, white as a sheet.

Now, when I was directed to that watch, I was conscious of a spirit

standing beside this gentleman," she pointed at him benevolently,

"influencing me to take it up. It’s a woman, and she must have been

about thirty when she passed out, and remarkably handsome, too. She was

sort of fair-complected, between dark and light. I get a feeling here

in my throat and down here," she touched her breast, lightly, curving

her arm gracefully inward, "as if she went out sudden, like, with heart

disease. Do you know what I mean?"

 

Mr. Payson had bent forward now. "Yes," he said, "I think I do. Has

she any message for me?"

 

"Yes, she has; but—well, you see, it ain’t one I’d exactly care to give

in public, and I don’t think you’d want me to, either. If you come up

after the séance is over, I’ll see if I can get it for you. Or you

might do still better to have a private setting and then I’ll have time to tell you more. She brings me a condition of what you might call worry or anxiety, as if you had something on your mind."