When Quincannon had complied, Vargas took the bound slates and placed them in the middle of the stack. “If the spirits are willing,” he said, “a message will be left for you beneath the signatures. Perhaps from a loved one who has passed beyond the pale, perhaps from a friendly spirit who may be in tune with your particular psychic impulses. Discarnate forces are never predictable, you understand.”
Quincannon nodded and smiled with his teeth.
“We may now be seated and form the mystic circle.”
When each of the sitters had selected and was standing behind a chair, Sabina to the medium’s immediate left and Quincannon directly across from him, both by prearrangement, Vargas again called for a volunteer. This time it was Dr. Cobb who stepped up first. Vargas handed him the coiled rope and seated himself in the high chair, his forearms flat on the chair arms with only his wrists and hands extended beyond the edges. He then instructed Cobb to bind him securely — arms, legs, and chest — to the chair, using as many knots as possible. Quincannon watched closely as this was done. He caught Sabina’s eye when the doctor finished; she dipped her chin to acknowledge that she too had spotted the gaff in this phase of the professor’s game.
Cobb, with Buckley’s help, moved Vargas’s chair closer to the table, so that his hands and wrists rested on the surface. Smiling, the medium asked the others to take their seats. As Quincannon sat down he bumped against the table, then reached down to feel one of its legs. As he’d expected, the table was much less heavy than it appeared to be at a glance. He stretched out a leg and with the toe of his shoe explored the carpet. The floor beneath seemed to be solid, but the nap was thick enough so that he couldn’t be certain.
Vargas instructed everyone to spread their hands, the fingers of the left to grasp the wrist of the person on that side; thus one hand of each person was holding and the other was being held. “Once we begin,” he said, “attempt to empty your minds of all thought, to keep them as blank as the table’s surface throughout. And remember, you must not move either hands or feet during the séance — you must not under any circumstances break the mystic circle. To do so could have grave consequences. There have been instances where inattention and disobedience have been fatal to sensitives such as myself.”
The professor closed his eyes, let his chin lower slowly to his chest. After a few seconds he commenced a whispering chant, a mixture of English and simulated Egyptian in which he called for the door to the spirit world to open and the shades of the departed to pass through and reveal their presence. While this was going on, the lights began to dim as if in phantasmical response to Vargas’s exhortations. The phenomenon elicited a shivery gasp from Margaret Buckley, but Quincannon was unimpressed. Gaslight in one room was easily controlled from another — in this case by the assistant, Annabelle, at a prearranged time or on some sort of signal.
The shadows congealed until the room was in utter darkness. Vargas’s chanting ceased abruptly; the silence deepened as it lengthened. Long minutes passed with no sounds except for the somewhat asthmatic breathing of Cyrus Buckley, the rustle of a dress or shuffle of a foot on the carpet. A palpable tension began to build. Sweat formed on Quincannon’s face, not from any tension but from the overheated air. He was not a man given to fancies, but he was forced to admit that there was an eerie quality to sitting in total blackness this way, waiting for something to happen. Spiritualist mediums counted on this reaction, of course. The more keyed up their dupes became, the more eager they were to believe in the incredible things they were about to witness; and the more eager they were, the more easily they could be fooled by their own senses.
Someone coughed, a sudden sharp sound that made even Quincannon twitch involuntarily. He thought the cough had come from Vargas, but in such stifling darkness you couldn’t be certain of the direction of any sound. Even when the medium spoke again, the words might have come from anywhere in the room.
“Angkar is with us. I feel his presence.”
On Quincannon’s left, Dr. Cobb stirred and their knees bumped together; Mrs. Buckley, on his right, brought forth another of her shivery gasps.
“Will you speak to us tonight, Angkar? Will you answer our questions in the language of the dead and guide us among your fellow spirits? Please grant our humble request. Please answer yes.”
The silver bell inside the jar rang once, muted but clear.
“Angkar has consented. He will speak, he will lead us. He will ring the bell once for yes to each question he is asked, twice for no, for that is the language of the dead. Will someone ask him a question? Doctor Cobb?”
“I will,” Cobb’s voice answered. “Angkar, is my brother Philip well and happy on the Other Side?”
The bell tinkled once.
“Will he appear to us in his spirit form?”
Yes.
“Will it be tonight?”
Silence.
Vargas said, “Angkar is unable to answer that question yet. Please ask another.”
There was a good deal more of this, with questions from Cobb, his wife, and Mrs. Buckley. Then Vargas called on Sabina to ask the spirit guide a question.
She obliged by saying, “Angkar, tell me please, is my little boy John with you? He was always such a bad little boy that I fear for his poor troubled soul.”
Yes, he is one of us.
No, he is not here tonight.
“Has he learned humility and common sense, two qualities which he lacked on this earthly sphere?”
Yes.
“And has he learned to take no for an answer?”
Yes.
Quincannon scowled in the darkness. Although Sabina had been married once, she had no children. The “little boy John” was her doting partner, of course. Having a bit of teasing fun at his expense while at the same time establishing proof of Vargas’s deceit.
“Mr. Quinn?” the professor said. “Will you ask Angkar a question?”
He might not have responded as he did if the heat and the sickly sweet incense hadn’t given him a headache. But his head throbbed, and Sabina’s playfulness rankled, and the words were out of his mouth before he could bite them back. “Oh yes, indeed,” he said. “Angkar, will my dear wife ever consent to share my cold and lonely bed?”
Shocked murmurs, a muffled choking sound that might have come from Sabina, rose around him. The bell was silent. And then, without warning, the table seemed to stir and tremble beneath Quincannon’s outstretched hands. Its smooth surface rippled; a faint creak sounded from somewhere underneath. In the next instant the table tilted sideways, turned and rocked and wobbled as if it had been injected with a life of its own. The agitated movements continued for several seconds, stopped altogether — and then the table lifted completely off the floor, seemed to float in the air for another two or three heartbeats before finally thudding back onto the carpet. Throughout all of this, the silver bell inside the jar remained conspicuously silent.
“Mr. Quinn, you have angered Angkar.” The medium’s voice was sharply reproachful. “He finds your question inappropriate, frivolous, even mocking. He may deny us further communication and return to the Afterworld.”
Mrs. Buckley cried, “Oh no, please, he mustn’t go!”
Cobb said angrily, “Damn your eyes, Quinn—”
“Silence!” Vargas, in a sibilant whisper. “We must do nothing more to disturb the spirits or the consequences may be dire. Do not move or speak. Do not break the circle.”
The stuffy blackness closed down again. It was an effort for Quincannon to hold still. He regretted his question, though not because of any effect on Angkar and his discarnate legion; he was sure that the table-tipping and levitation would have taken place in any event. His regret was that he had allowed Sabina to glimpse the depth of his frustration, and into the bargain added weight to her already erroneous idea of the nature of his passion. Seduction wasn’t his game; his affection for her was genuine, abiding. Hell and damn! Now it might take him days, even weeks, to undo the damage done by his profligate tongue—