The Heart Line 44

The Heart Line 44

His victim watched, anxiously waiting, with his two hands on the head of

his cane. The gloom appeared to affect his spirits; he seemed ready to

expect the worst.

 

Doctor Masterson took off his spectacles and wiped them on a yellow silk

handkerchief. "It looks pretty serious to me," he said, "but I

calculate I can fix you up. It’ll cost some money, though. Ye see,

it’s this way: I’m controlled by an Indian medicine-man named Hasandoka

and his band o’ sperits. Now, in order to bring this here psychic force

to bear on your case, it’s bound to take considerable o’ my time and

their time, and I’ll have to go to work and neglect my reg’lar patients.

It takes it out o’ me, and I can’t do but just so much or I peter out.

I’ll go into a trance and see what Hasandoka has to say, and then you’ll

be in a condition to know what to decide. O’ course, you understand, I

ain’t no doctor and don’t claim to be, but I got control of a powerful

psychic force that guides me in my treatment, and I never knew it to

fail yet. If my band o’ sperits can’t help you, nobody can, and you

better go to work and make your will right away. See?"

 

Mr. Payson saw the argument and manifested a desire to proceed with the

investigation.

 

The doctor loosened his celluloid collar and closed his eyes. In a

minute or two he appeared to fall asleep, breathing heavily.

 

Then, through him, the great Hasandoka spoke, in the guttural dialect

such as is supposed to be affected by the American Indian, using flowery

metaphors punctuated by grunts.

 

The tenor of his communication was that Mr. Payson was undoubtedly

afflicted with something which was termed a "complication." He went

into fearsome prophecies as to its probable progress downward to the

feet, upward to the brain and forward to the kidney, with minor

excursions to the liver and lights. The patient’s spine was preparing

itself for paralysis; it seemed that death was imminent at any moment.

Hasandoka expressed his willingness to accept the case, however, and

promised to effect a radical cure in a month at most, if treatment were

begun immediately, before it was too late. The cure would be

accomplished by massage, used in connection with a potent herb, known

only to the primitive Indian tribes. After this message Hasandoka

squirmed out of the medium’s body and the soul of Doctor Masterson

squirmed in again. There were the customary spasmodic gestures of

awakening before he opened his eyes.

 

"Well, what did he tell you?" he asked.

 

Mr. Payson repeated the communication in a dispirited tone.

 

"Bad as that, is it?" said Masterson. "One foot in the grave, so to

speak. Well, I tell you what I’ll do. I’m interested in your case, for

if I can go to work and cure you it’ll be more or less of a feather in

my cap. See here; I won’t charge you but fifty dollars a week till

you’re cured, and if you ain’t a well man in thirty days, I’ll hand your

money back. That’s a fair business proposition, ain’t it? I guarantee

to put all my time on your case."

 

Mr. Payson gratefully accepted the terms. A meeting for a treatment was

appointed for the next day.

 

This time Doctor Masterson was prepared for his victim.

 

[Illustration: Doctor Masterson was prepared for his victim]

 

"I’ve been in direct communication with Hasandoka," he said, "and I’m

posted on your case now, and have full directions what to do. The first

thing is a good course of massage. Now, which would you prefer to have,

a man or a woman? I got a girl I sometimes employ who’s pretty slick at

massage. She’s good and strong and willing and as pretty as a peach, if

I do say it—she’s got a figger like a waxwork—I think p’raps Flora would

help you more’n any one—"

 

Mr. Payson shook his head coldly, saying that he preferred a man.

 

"Oh, o’ course," Doctor Masterson said apologetically, shrugging his

shoulders, "if you don’t want her I guess I better go to work and do the

rubbing myself, if you’d be better satisfied."

 

The Indian herb prescribed by Hasandoka was, it appeared, a rare, secret

and expensive drug. The doctor’s price was ten dollars a bottle, in

addition to his weekly charge for treatment. He presented Mr. Payson

with a bottle of dark brown fluid of abominable odor.

 

The treatment went on thrice a week, the massage being alternated with

trances in which the doctor, under the cogent spell of the medicine man,

uttered many strange things. The whole effect of this was to reassure

Mr. Payson upon the fact that powerful influences were at work for his

especial benefit.

 

Whether induced by Hasandoka’s aid or by Doctor Masterson’s suggestion,

an improvement in the patient’s mind, at least, did come. He was met,

the following week, by the magnetic healer in his rooms with a

congratulatory smile. Doctor Masterson inaugurated the second stage of

his campaign.

 

"Say, you certainly are looking better, ain’t you? How’s the pain,

disappearing, eh? I thought we could bring you around. Yesterday I was

in a trance four hours on your case and it took the life out o’ me

something terrible. I knew then that I was drawing the disease out o’

you. You just go to work and walk acrost the room, and see if you ain’t

improved. We got you started now, and all we got to do is to keep it up

till you’re absolutely well."

 

Blanchard Cayley also seemed interested when Mr. Payson told him of the

improvement.

 

"You certainly are growing younger every day," said Cayley. "I don’t

know how you manage it at your age, in this vile weather, too, but I

notice you’ve got more color and more spring in you. You’re a wonder!"

 

One afternoon, during the third week of his treatment, as Mr. Payson was

seated in his own office, the door opened and a chubby, roly-poly figure

of a woman, with soft brown eyes and hair, came in timidly and looked

about, seemingly perplexed and embarrassed. She walked up to his desk.

 

"I beg your pardon," she said, "but could you tell me where Mr.

Bigelow’s office is, in this building? I thought it was on this floor,

but I can’t find his name on any door."

 

He replied, scarcely glancing at her: "Down at the end of the corridor,

on the left."

 

She stood watching him for a moment as he continued his writing, and

then ventured to say:

 

"I beg your pardon, sir, but ain’t you the gentleman that come to me

some time ago to have your life read?"

 

He looked up now and recognized her as the one who had initiated him

into the occult world, through the medium of the "Egyptian egg."

 

"Why, yes." He smiled benevolently. "You’re Miss Ellis, aren’t you?"

 

She seemed pleased. "Yes," she answered; "I hope you don’t mind my

reminding you of it, but I took an interest in your case more than

usual, on account of your reading being so different, and I was

surprised to see you here. You’re looking much better than you did

then. When you come into my place, I said to myself, ’There’s a man

that’ll pass out pretty soon if he don’t take care of himself.’ You

seemed so miserable. Why, I wouldn’t know you now, you’re so much

improved. You must have gained flesh, too. Well, I congratulate you.

If you ever want another reading, come around—here’s my card, but

perhaps you’ve tried Madam Spoll since. She’s the best in the business.

I go to her myself sometimes."

 

He walked to the door with her and bowed her out politely.

 

A week after he made another visit to Madam Spoll. The medium was

gracious and congratulatory.

 

"Why, you look like a new man, that’s a fact!" she said. "Between you

and me, I never really expected that you could recover, but I knew if

anybody could help you it would be Masterson. I suppose he come pretty

high, didn’t he? Two hundred! For the land sake! I’m sorry you had to

fall into the hands of that shark, but, after all, it’s cheaper than

being dead, ain’t it? A desperate disease requires a desperate remedy,

they say. I wouldn’t take you for more than forty years old now, in

spite of your gray hairs.

 

"Now," she continued, "you’ve had experience and you’re in a position to

know whether there’s any truth in spiritualism or not. No matter what

anybody tells you about fakes or tricks and all that nonsense—I don’t

say some so-called mediums ain’t collusions—you’ve demonstrated the

truth of it for yourself, and you’ve found out that we can do what we

say. You can afford to laugh at the skeptics and these smart-Alecs who

pretend to know it all. What we claim can be proved and you’ve proved

it. Lord, I’d like to know where you’d be now if you hadn’t. I’ve

always said: ’Investigate it for yourself, and if you don’t get

satisfaction, leave it alone for them that do. Go at it in a frank and

honest spirit and try to find out the truth, and you’ll generally come

out convinced.’ I don’t believe in no underhanded ways of going to work

at it neither. If you was going to study up Christian Science, or

Mo-homedism, we’ll say, you wouldn’t be trying to deceive them and

giving false names and all, and why should you when you want to find out

about the spirit world? What you want to do is to depend upon the

character of the information you get, to test the truth of what we

claim. You treat us square and we’ll treat you square. We ain’t

infalliable, but we can help. Whatever is to be had from the spirit

plane we can generally get it for you."

 

"I’m very much interested," Mr. Payson said. "There does seem to be

something in it, and I want to get to the bottom of it. There are

several things I’d like to get help on, too."

 

"Do you know, I knew they was something worrying you," she replied,

smiling placidly. She laid her fingers to her silken thorax. "I felt

your magnetism right here when you came in, and I got a feeling of

unpleasantness or worry. It ain’t about a little thing either; it’s an

important matter, now, ain’t it?"

 

Mr. Payson, affected by her sympathy, admitted that it was. Under his

shaggy eyebrows, his cold eyes watched her anxiously, as if gazing at

one who might wrest secrets from him. His belief in her had increased

with every sitting, so that now the old man, gray and bald, in his

judicial frock-coat, lost something of his influential manner and became

more like a child before his teacher, swayed by every word that fell

from her lips.

 

Her manner was half patronizing, half domineering. "What did I tell you?

You feel as if, well, you don’t quite know _what_ to do, and you’re

saying to yourself all the time, ’Now, what _shall_ I do?’ That’s just

the condition I get."

 

"Do you think you could help me?"

 

"I don’t know; I’ll try. I ain’t feeling very receptive to spirit

influence to-day; I guess I overeat myself some; but then, again, I

might be very successful; there’s no telling. You just let me hold your

hands a few minutes and I can see right off whether conditions are favorable or not."