Why, I never seem to get away from the Spiritualists! he exclaimed.
You never will, Mr. Malone, said the lean clergyman, chuckling. The world never will until it has absorbed this new knowledge which God has sent. You can't get away from it. It is too big. At the present moment, in this great city there is not a place where men or women meet that it does not come up. And yet you would not know it from the Press.
Well, you can't level that reproach at the Daily Gazette, said Malone. Possibly you may have read my own descriptive articles.
Yes, I read them. They are at least better than the awful sensational nonsense which the London Press usually serves up, save when they ignore it altogether. To read a paper like The Times you would never know that this vital movement existed at all. The only editorial allusion to it that I can ever remember was in a leading article when the great paper announced that it would believe in it when it found it could, by means of it, pick out more winners on a race-card than by other means.
Doosed useful, too, said Lord Roxton. It's just what I should have said myself. What!
The clergyman's face was grave and he shook his head.
That brings me back to the object of my visit, he said. He turned to Malone. I took the liberty of calling upon Lord Roxton in connection with his advertisement to say that if he went on such a quest with a good intention, no better work could be found in the world, but if he did it out of a love of sport, following some poor earth-bound soul in the same spirit as he followed the white rhinoceros of the Lido, he might be playing with fire.
Well, padre, I've been playin' with fire all my life and that's nothin' new. What I mean if you want me to look at this ghost business from the religious angle, there's nothin' doin', for the Church of England that I was brought up in fills my very modest need. But if it's got a spice of danger, as you say, then it's worth while. What!
The Rev. Charles Mason smiled his kindly, toothsome grin.
Incorrigible, is he not? he said to Malone. Well, I can only wish you a fuller comprehension of the subject. He rose as if to depart.
Wait a bit, padre! cried Lord Roxton, hurriedly. When I'm explorin', I begin by ropin' in a friendly native. I expect you're just the man. Won't you come with me?
Where to?
Well, sit down and I'll tell you. He rummaged among a pile of letters on his desk. Fine selection of spooks! he said. I got on the track of over twenty by the first post. This is an easy winner, though. Read it for yourself. Lonely house, man driven mad, tenants boltin' in the night, horrible spectre. Sounds all right what!
The clergyman read the letter with puckered brows.
It seems a bad case, said he.
Well, suppose you come along. What! Maybe you can help clear it up.
The Rev. Mason pulled out a pocket-almanac. I have a service for ex-Service men on Wednesday, and a lecture the same evening.
But we could start to-day.
It's a long way.
Only Dorsetshire. Three hours.
What is your plan?
Well, I suppose a night in the house should do it.
If there is any poor soul in trouble it becomes a duty. Very well, I will come.
And surely there is room for me, pleaded Malone.
Of course there is, young fellah! What I mean I expect that old, red-headed bird at the office sent you round with no other purpose. Ah, I thought so. Well, you can write an adventure that is not perfect bilge for a change what! There's a train from Victoria at eight o'clock. We can meet there, and I'll have a look in at old man Challenger as I pass.
They dined together in the train and after dinner reassembled in their first-class carriage, which is the snuggest mode of travel which the world can show. Roxton, behind a big black cigar, was full of his visit to Challenger.
The old dear is the same as ever. Bit my head off once or twice in his own familiar way. Talked unadulterated tripe. Says I've got brain-softenin', if I could think there was such a thing as a real spook. 'When you're dead you're dead'. That's the old man's cheery slogan. Surveyin' his contemporaries' he said, extinction was a doosed good thing! 'It's the only hope of the world', said he. 'Fancy the awful prospect if they survived'. Wanted to give me a bottle of chlorine to chuck at the ghost. I told him that if my automatic was not a spook-stopper, nothin' else would serve. Tell me, padre, is this the first time you've been on safari after this kind of game?
You treat the matter too lightly, Lord John, said the clergyman gravely. You have clearly had no experience of it. In answer to your question I may say that I have several times tried to help in similar cases.
And you take it seriously? asked Malone, making notes for his article.
Very, very seriously.
What do you think these influences are?
I am no authority upon the general question. You know Algernon Mailey, the barrister, do you not? He could give you facts and figures. I approach the subject rather perhaps from the point of view of instinct and emotion. I remember Mailey lecturing on Professor Bozzano's book on ghosts where over five hundred well-authenticated instances were given, every one of them sufficient to establish an a priori case. There is Flammarion, too. You can't laugh away evidence of that kind.
I've read Bozzano and Flammarion, too, said Malone, but it is your own experience and conclusions that I want.
Well, if you quote me, remember that I do not look on myself as a great authority on psychic research. Wiser brains than mine may come along and give some other explanation. Still, what I have seen has led me to certain conclusions. One of them is to think that there is some truth in the theosophical idea of shells.
What is that?
They imagined that all spirit bodies near the earth were empty shells or husks from which the real entity had departed. Now, of course, we know that a general statement of that sort is nonsense, for we could not get the glorious communications which we do get from anything but high intelligences. But we also must beware of generalizations. They are not all high intelligences. Some are so low that I think the creature is purely external and is an appearance rather than a reality.
But why should it be there?
Yes, that is the question. It is usually allowed that there is the natural body, as St. Paul called it, which is dissolved at death, and the etheric or spiritual body which survives and functions upon an etheric plane. Those are the essential things. But we may really have as many coats as an onion and there may be a mental body which may shed itself at any spot where great mental or emotional strain has been experienced. It may be a dull automatic simulacrum and yet carry something of our appearance and thoughts.
Well said Malone, that would to some extent get over the difficulty, for I could never imagine that a murderer or his victim could spend whole centuries re-acting the old crime. What would be the sense of it?
Quite right, young fellah, said Lord Roxton. There was a pal of mine, Archie Soames, the gentleman Jock, who had an old place in Berkshire. Well, Nell Gwynne had lived there once, and he was ready to swear he met her a dozen times in the passage. Archie never flinched at the big jump at the Grand National, but, by Jove! he flinched at those passages after dark. Doosed fine woman she was and all that, but dash it all! What I mean one has to draw the line what!