Countess Zulk sat up straight. “Our dear Katinka Ivanovna has told us many times of a Master Ascended who sometimes comes down from the Ghoolie Hills where his maha-ashram is; that is, in a non-material form he comes down, and if requested will impart messages of the deepest spiritual import. His name... his name is Maha Atma Chandra Gupta. I should like to enquire if Maha Atma Chandra Gupta would condescend to say something to us.”
There was a long silence. Then, suddenly, the lips of Katinka Ivanovna opened, and a voice spoke through them. It was not her voice. It was the voice of a man and it spoke in English, a clipped British English, but with a trace of something else... perhaps a lilt like that of Welsh. “ There is too much coriander in this curry!” the voice said, sharply. No one else spoke a word. After a while the voice spoke a word, several words, and this time it sounded very annoyed. “Dal?” it enquired. “Do you call this dal? An untouchable would not touch it! It causes me the utmost damned astonishment that you should set this before me, purporting it to be dal!” The voice ceased abruptly. Silence. The gaslight hissed. Again the voice spoke. It said, “Excellent/” The tone of sarcasm was unmistakable. “Excellent! Mango chutney without mango! Excellent!”
For another long moment the gas-light susurrated without further sound accompanying it. Then, so suddenly that everyone started, Madame Dombrovski was on her feet, her palm pressed to her bosom. “La!” she sang. “Fa so laaa . . .” In another moment, wide awake now, she burst into hearty laughter, her golden inlays a-gleam. “Pliz,” she begged, “pliz tall me, deed a spear-eat spick?”
Sudden embarrassment. Eszterhazy coughed. “The Maha Atma Chandra Gupta —”
“Ah, that great soul! Two hawndred yirs he is stayed een he’s maha ashram e’en the Ghoolie Heels communing veeth the avatars! Amrita, a spear-ritual nectar, they breeng he’m; udder vise only vonse a yir solid food he taked: dal veeth curry, a spoon fool. And mango chawtney, half a spoon fool. — Vhat he sayed?”
The company looked at each other, looked at Katinka Ivanovna, looked at Eszterhazy. Who again coughed. “Evidently the Great Soul spoke in metaphors which we, with our gross perceptions, were really not quite able to interpret. . . .”
Quite suddenly and with no word of warning — unless, indeed, a somewhat slurping sound caused by licking a blob of mustard off his knife could be so considered — Professor Gronk said, abruptly, “In regard to the Autogondola-Invention on which I have been working for five years in order to present it to Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania, my dearly adopted Parentland,” and there he stopped.
“My dear Professor,” said Eszterhazy, smoothly taking the savant gently by an elbow and turning him around, “I perceive that you have not yet tried the very-yellow goat-cheese, although your opinion is one which I particularly value.” Professor Gronk calmly reloaded his plate, plopped on some more mustard, and ate with a dreamy air.
“ ‘Goat-cheese,’ hah!” exclaimed Baron Burgenblitz. “The peasants in Hyperborea are cutting up about the goat-tax again, eh, and why? —why, the devil, or some other ancient influence, has gotten into their goatherds and they don’t want to have to pay twice ... ah I wish those tax-collectors come parading through my barony, damn them, I’d get up into my castle-fortress, pull up my drawbridge and bombard the lot with my artillery, damme if I wouldn’t!” And he gnashed his teeth and gazed all round about with bloodshot eyes and left little doubt that, given the opportunity, he would do just that. “A whiff of grape-shot, that’s what they need! I’d goat-tax them, rrrrgggghhhh!”
But at this point Katinka Ivanovna with mellow voice suggested that they sit down at table and try to find what the planchette had to tell. The oui-ja board somewhat resembled an easel laid flat, on which had been painted the letters of the alphabet and the first ten numbers, plus a few other signs. On it rested a sort of wooden trivet with casters. “Now,” suggested Eszterhazy, “if several of us, perhaps three, will sit down and place the tips of the fingers lightly on top of the planchette so that no single one person will be able to move it without the two others being aware, it is said that the spirits may guide it to various letters and numbers . . . perhaps by this method spelling out a message. So. If Katinka Ivanovna would be kind enough? If Countess Zulk —? And . . . oh? What? I myself? Oh. Well, very well. Now! Pard, if you will kindly observe the letters which the planchette touches as it moves, and call them out? And if someone else will please use this pencil and paper to write them down? Ah! Uncle Iggy! Thank you very much! Shall we begin?”
The three of them sat around the small table with their fingers resting lightly on the light piece of wood. Once more: silence. Nothing moved but the gas-flame and its shadows. Then something else did. The planchette suddenly and very smoothly glided across the board towards the arch of letters. Then it glided back. Then . . .
The lateness of the hour had not prevented Professor Gronk from methodically continuing to graze his way along the sideboard, and the bottle-shaped bulges in his coat-pocket showed where anyway some of the otherwise undrunk beer, lemonade, and bullblood wine had gone. At length he paused. Gave a long, slow look up and down. All that remained was a half a pot of mustard. Dreamily, the Professor took up a small spoon and calmly consumed the contents of the pot. He stayed a moment, a long moment, looking into it. Then he gave a huge eructation. Then, the attention of his host and the one other remaining guest having been attracted, he said, “The aerolines.”
“The aerolines?”
“The aerolines. For the Autogondola-Invention. I have just had an idea.” And, doubtless thinking deeply of the idea, Professor Gronk glided away, still holding the mustard-spoon in one hand.
Uncle Iggy had looked up, but he did not speak until the inventor was gone. Then he asked, “This . . . invention . . . ?”
Eszterhazy pursed his lips. His moustache was grown thicker; now and then he was obliged to trim it. “It has ... as an idea... some merits. Some . . . possibilities. Perhaps we shall live to see them realized.”
Uncle Iggy said that perhaps they might live to see the moon mined for cheese. Then he picked up the paper on which he had written down the letters indicated by the planchette as it moved hither and fro upon the oui-ja board, and lightly smacked it with his free hand. It had been found necessary to eliminate a number of letters; this was perhaps usually the case; out of what was left, one or two statements had been extracted... no one had cared to call them messages. Eszterhazy issued a slight sigh. “Ah yes, the spirits tonight seemed rather concerned with food. Still... I hope you were amused . . . ?”
Guest seemed to wrestle a moment with answer, head crooked earnestly to one side, lips moving before utterance was quite ready. Gas-light reflected on polished wood and brass and glass, made shifting shadows on flowered wall-paper.