The Ginger Cat Mystery (31 page)

“By jove, I think we ought to try!” exclaimed John Thurlow with sudden eagerness. “I feel a bit nervous, though I don't just see what there is to be scared about.”

“If we find that our experiments prove unpleasant or dangerous, we can certainly chuck them up,” remarked Eileen.

“Of course, of course,” replied John Thurlow and for some moments sat lost in thought. His eyes wandered round the quaint old room with its dark oak beams and wainscoting. Through his mind was passing the thought that for hundreds of years all sorts of people had lived and moved and talked and wept and laughed and loved and quarrelled in that very room. The whole house was impregnated with the spirit of the bygone and bore the indelible imprint of the activities and designs of people long since dead and forgotten. He glanced through the open window at the dark blue sky, now spangled with stars. A vague sense of mystery and wonder stole into his musing. From the particular, his thoughts broadened out to the general. The universe was altogether inexplicable, even to science. How and why did it begin? Whither was it progressing? Where and how would it all end? What relation did this earth and its teeming millions of lives bear to that star-scattered space? Was that vast ethereal sweep peopled by the spirits of all past time? Futile questionings! He turned to his niece and asked: “Shall I put out the light?”

“Certainly, Uncle. For some unknown reason, darkness seems to favour any kind of manifestation. All spiritualists agree on that score. I daresay there's some natural law behind it. When you've done so, sit perfectly still and listen. I'm going to try and get in touch with what is called a spirit guide. I ought to have a spirit guide; all mediums have.”

John Thurlow rose from his chair, pressed up the switch on the wall at his left hand, and sat down again. When his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he could vaguely discern the various pieces of furniture about the room, and, glancing at his niece, he saw her form clearly outlined by the white organdie muslin dress she was wearing. That dress seemed almost luminous as it caught the faint light filtering in through the windows. Her pale face was a grey smudge above the dress.

“Are you all right, Eileen?” he asked.

“Yes. Let's begin. Try and keep your mind quite free from any distracting train of thought. You'll find it difficult. Now please don't talk any more.”

John Thurlow settled himself in his chair and tried to keep his mind quite free from distracting trains of thought. Yes, it was more difficult than he had surmised. His right hand, in his jacket pocket, was fondling the smooth bowl of his briar pipe, and a strong desire to smoke assailed him. Under the urge, he was on the point of asking Eileen whether smoking would militate against favourable conditions, when his attention was suddenly arrested by his niece's heavy, stertorous breathing. He was on the point of asking her if she were all right, but remembered her strict injunctions against speaking and desisted. He sat and listened to that laboured inhalation and exhalation for some moments and wondered if she had gone into the trance state usual with mediums. He was beginning to feel decidedly nervous. Everything was so still and eerie, and he was slowly being overcome by a strong conviction that at any moment some uncanny manifestation might occur, some horror materialize before his eyes. He resolved to keep a firm control over himself and all his faculties alert. He would confront any such wonder in a true scientific spirit of observation. He must not allow himself to be disturbed or thwarted by such an infantile thing as fear. What was there to be afraid of, in any case? Eileen was certainly complete mistress of herself. No trace of fear in her behaviour! But perhaps she was now quite unconscious, in that cataleptic state which is the usual trance of the medium.

He listened again to her breathing. It was painfully heavy, but now quite rhythmic. Had she fallen asleep? He couldn't resist the impulse to ask her.

“You awake, Eileen?” he queried in a whisper.

“Yes, wide awake. Listen attentively!” came the reply in a strained voice, quite unlike Eileen's.

John Thurlow experienced a sudden and sharp insurgence of fear. He felt his skin creep and was quite certain that his hair was standing on end. With a supreme effort, he controlled himself and obeyed the summons to listen attentively. Some minutes passed without anything happening. A clock in another room chimed sweetly and faintly in the almost oppressive silence. Then, all at once, very faint strains of music seemed to hover and quiver in the darkened room. They were full of haunting melody and seemed to have that strange sweetness of music that is heard across a sweep of water. Eileen's breath was now coming in sharp, rasping gasps. John Thurlow sat petrified with amazement. Had he lost touch with reality? Surely his ears, in conjunction with his mental expectancy, had played him some fantastic trick, produced some aural hallucination? He listened again with almost painful concentration. Once more the silence was broken by the ghostly music; at times so faint as to be almost inaudible, and then at intervals so distinct as to render the atmosphere in the darkened room perceptibly vibrant.

As he sat motionless and attentive, his first sensation of terror gave place to a feeling of entranced awe. He now felt certain that he recognized here and there a familiar musical phrase, but could not place it; for, though fond of music, he never could assign to any particular work or composer an aria or passage which he chanced to hear or transiently remember. At that crucial moment, he wished that in the past he had paid more attention to such detail, instead of pleasurably gulping the stuff without noting its title or the name of its creator. Suddenly the unseen musician stopped and repeated more perfectly a passage, as if dissatisfied with his first execution. This unexpected occurrence seemed so characteristically human, that it at once charged John Thurlow's attitude with sceptical alertness. Surely there must be some ordinary and natural explanation of this musical phenomenon? Without rising from his chair, he stretched out his hand and quietly switched on the electric light. He glanced at Eileen. Her eyes were closed and her head had sunk forward on her breast. She seemed fast asleep. In a few moments her loud breathing returned to normal, she quietly opened her eyes, and looked across almost vacantly at her uncle. Noticing that he was about to speak, she raised her hand as if to enjoin silence. They both sat and listened. Once more the faint music seemed to surge gently into the room and roll up and recede with alternate strength and diminution. To Eileen it seemed supernal, ineffably beautiful.

“It's an organ!” exclaimed John Thurlow, unable to restrain himself any longer and, rising from his chair, he opened a door leading from his study into the garden and stepped out into the night.

A little later, he re-entered the room by the same door with a look of amazement on his face.

“It's certainly not the church organ, Eileen!” he said emphatically. “Outside there's not a sound to be heard. This is most mysterious.”

“The music has stopped,” replied Eileen with an air of annoyance. “Immediately you begin to fiddle about for natural explanations of a spirit manifestation, you simply ruin the conditions. You become a hostile influence, Uncle. You must remember that we're trying to get in touch with a spirit; we're not in a laboratory or a law court. It's well known that in an atmosphere of suspicion, with people whose minds are alert for detecting fraud, or intent on material explanations of supernatural phenomena, nothing will ever occur.”

“I'm sorry, Eileen,” replied her uncle apologetically, “I'll bear that in mind in future. To-night's experience has been an eye-opener to me. Positively stupendous!”

“And it's only the beginning,” added Eileen enthusiastically. “If we conduct our experiments in the right frame of mind, we'll get further manifestations, perhaps some kind of materialization.”

“You mean a ghost?” asked John Thurlow with alarm.

“Let's call it a spirit form. I like it better than ghost. The word ghost seems to imply fear, just as the word spook implies fear masquerading as courage. I'm feeling terribly tired. The experience has exhausted me and I'm going to bed. Good-night.”

Eileen rose languidly from her chair and noiselessly left the study. Hurrying upstairs to her room, she slipped on a light overcoat, descended again stealthily so as not to disturb her uncle, and wandered out into the garden. There was a strange vagueness about her thoughts which she ascribed to the after effects of her trance state.

On her departure, John Thurlow glanced nervously round his study and then coughed as if to assure himself that he was not altogether scared. Drawing his pipe from his pocket, he lit it, and after a few vigorous puffs, swung round his chair to the table and resumed his reading of Sir William Crookes's book. He had only read a few pages, when to his unbounded astonishment, he heard again the faint sound of an organ being played. With nervous fingers he closed his book, shut his eyes, and listened attentively. Yes he recognized the air, and as he strove hard to recollect it the name all at once flashed into his mind. It was Handel's Dead March from “Saul.” He was very familiar with this march, and by some psychological trick his recognition of it at once dissociated the music in his mind from the region of the supernatural. He rose from his chair and, kneeling down, placed his ear to the ground. Surely he could now hear the sounds more clearly! Or was it mere fancy? He could not be certain. Rising to his feet again, he passed once more out into the garden. There, all was silence except for the plaintive hooting of an owl in a fringe of woodland bordering the adjoining paddock. More perplexed than ever, he returned to his study, where the very faint strains of an organ—he was certain the instrument was an organ—were still clearly audible.

“Most amazing!” he exclaimed and added with a note of rising exasperation. “But I'll get to the bottom of this thing, or my name's not John Thurlow!”

All trace of fear had now seemingly left him, and his face had assumed a look of sullen determination. He had reverted to the John Thurlow, successful merchant and financier, intent on getting the best of a deal, and in such a mood he was a man of unshakable resolution. His first thought was to summon Eileen, but remembering her air of complete exhaustion on retiring, he changed his mind and decided to investigate alone. For some moments he stood hesitant and then, thrusting his pipe in his pocket, crossed to his writing desk. Extracting a heavy army-pattern revolver from a drawer, he began silently to search the whole ground floor of the house.