Sight Unseen Read online

  SIGHT UNSEEN

  By Mary Roberts Rinehart

  I

  The rather extraordinary story revealed by the experiments of theNeighborhood Club have been until now a matter only of private record.But it seems to me, as an active participant in the investigations, thatthey should be given to the public; not so much for what they will addto the existing data on psychical research, for from that angle theywere not unusual, but as yet another exploration into that stilluncharted territory, the human mind.

  The psycho-analysts have taught us something about the individual mind.They have their own patter, of complexes and primal instincts, ofthe unconscious, which is a sort of bonded warehouse from which weclandestinely withdraw our stored thoughts and impressions. They layto this unconscious mind of ours all phenomena that cannot otherwisebe labeled, and ascribe such demonstrations of power as cannot thus beexplained to trickery, to black silk threads and folding rods, to slateswith false sides and a medium with chalk on his finger nail.

  In other words, they give us subjective mind but never objective mind.They take the mind and its reactions on itself and on the body. Butwhat about objective mind? Does it make its only outward manifestationsthrough speech and action? Can we ignore the effect of mind on mind,when there are present none of the ordinary media of communication? Ithink not.

  In making the following statement concerning our part in the strangecase of Arthur Wells, a certain allowance must be made for our ignoranceof so-called psychic phenomena, and also for the fact that since thattime, just before the war, great advances have been made in scientificmethods of investigation. For instance, we did not place Miss Jeremy'schair on a scale, to measure for any loss of weight. Also the theoryof rods of invisible matter emanating from the medium's body, to movebodies at a distance from her, had only been evolved; and none of themethods for calculation of leverages and strains had been formulated, sofar as I know.

  To be frank, I am quite convinced that, even had we known of theseso-called explanations, which in reality explain nothing, we wouldhave ignored them as we became involved in the dramatic movement ofthe revelations and the personal experiences which grew out of them. Iconfess that following the night after the first seance any observationsof mine would have been of no scientific value whatever, and I believe Ican speak for the others also.

  Of the medium herself I can only say that we have never questioned herintegrity. The physical phenomena occurred before she went into trance,and during that time her forearms were rigid. During the deep trance,with which this unusual record deals, she spoke in her own voice, but ina querulous tone, and Sperry's examination of her pulse showed that itwent from eighty normal to a hundred and twenty and very feeble.

  With this preface I come to the death of Arthur Wells, our acquaintanceand neighbor, and the investigation into that death by a group of sixearnest people who call themselves the Neighborhood Club.

  *****

  The Neighborhood Club was organized in my house. It was too small reallyto be called a club, but women have a way these days of conferring atitular dignity on their activities, and it is not so bad, after all.The Neighborhood Club it really was, composed of four of our neighbors,my wife, and myself.

  We had drifted into the habit of dining together on Monday eveningsat the different houses. There were Herbert Robinson and his sisterAlice--not a young woman, but clever, alert, and very alive; Sperry, thewell-known heart specialist, a bachelor still in spite of much feminineactivity; and there was old Mrs. Dane, hopelessly crippled as to theknees with rheumatism, but one of those glowing and kindly souls thathave a way of being a neighborhood nucleus. It was around her that wefirst gathered, with an idea of forming for her certain contact pointswith the active life from which she was otherwise cut off. But she gaveus, I am sure, more than we brought her, and, as will be seen later, hershrewdness was an important element in solving our mystery.

  In addition to these four there were my wife and myself.

  It had been our policy to take up different subjects for theseneighborhood dinners. Sperry was a reformer in his way, and on hisnights we generally took up civic questions. He was particularlyinterested in the responsibility of the state to the sick poor. My wifeand I had "political" evenings. Not really politics, except in theirrelation to life. I am a lawyer by profession, and dabble a bit in citygovernment. The Robinsons had literature.

  Don't misunderstand me. We had no papers, no set programs. On theRobinson evenings we discussed editorials and current periodicals, aswell as the new books and plays. We were frequently acrimonious, I fear,but our small wrangles ended with the evening. Robinson was the literaryeditor of a paper, and his sister read for a large publishing house.

  Mrs. Dane was a free-lance. "Give me that privilege," she begged. "Atleast, until you find my evenings dull. It gives me, during all the weekbefore you come, a sort of thrilling feeling that the world is mine tochoose from." The result was never dull. She led us all the way frommoving-pictures to modern dress. She led us even further, as you willsee.

  On consulting my note-book I find that the first evening which directlyconcerns the Arthur Wells case was Monday, November the second, of lastyear.

  It was a curious day, to begin with. There come days, now and then,that bring with them a strange sort of mental excitement. I have neveranalyzed them. With me on this occasion it took the form of nervousirritability, and something of apprehension. My wife, I remember,complained of headache, and one of the stenographers had a faintingattack.

  I have often wondered for how much of what happened to Arthur Wells theday was responsible. There are days when the world is a place for loveand play and laughter. And then there are sinister days, when the earthis a hideous place, when even the thought of immortality is unbearable,and life itself a burden; when all that is riotous and unlawful comesforth and bares itself to the light.

  This was such a day.

  I am fond of my friends, but I found no pleasure in the thought ofmeeting them that evening. I remembered the odious squeak in the wheelsof Mrs. Dane's chair. I resented the way Sperry would clear his throat.I read in the morning paper Herbert Robinson's review of a book I hadliked, and disagreed with him. Disagreed violently. I wanted to call himon the telephone and tell him that he was a fool. I felt old, although Iam only fifty-three, old and bitter, and tired.

  With the fall of twilight, things changed somewhat. I was more passive.Wretchedness encompassed me, but I was not wretched. There was violencein the air, but I was not violent. And with a bath and my dinner clothesI put away the horrors of the day.

  My wife was better, but the cook had given notice.

  "There has been quarreling among the servants all day," my wife said. "Iwish I could go and live on a desert island."

  We have no children, and my wife, for lack of other interests, finds herhousekeeping an engrossing and serious matter. She is in the habitof bringing her domestic difficulties to me when I reach home in theevenings, a habit which sometimes renders me unjustly indignant. Mostunjustly, for she has borne with me for thirty years and is knownthroughout the entire neighborhood as a perfect housekeeper. I can closemy eyes and find any desired article in my bedroom at any time.

  We passed the Wellses' house on our way to Mrs. Dane's that night, andmy wife commented on the dark condition of the lower floor.

  "Even if they are going out," she said, "it would add to the appearanceof the street to leave a light or two burning. But some people have nopublic feeling."

  I made no comment, I believe. The Wellses were a young couple, withchildren, and had been known to observe that they considered theneighborhood "stodgy." And we had retaliated, I regret to say, in kind,but not with any real unkindness, by regarding them as interlopers. Theydrove too many cars, and dr
ove them too fast; they kept a governess anddidn't see enough of their children; and their English butler made ourneat maids look commonplace.

  There is generally, in every old neighborhood, some one house on whichis fixed, so to speak, the community gaze, and in our case it was onthe Arthur Wellses'. It was a curious, not unfriendly staring, muchI daresay like that of the old robin who sees two young wild canariesbuilding near her.

  We passed the house, and went on to Mrs. Dane's.

  She had given us no inkling of what we were to have that night, and mywife conjectured a conjurer! She gave me rather a triumphant smile whenwe were received in the library and the doors into the drawing-room wereseen to be tightly closed.

  We were early, as my wife is a punctual person, and soon after ourarrival Sperry came. Mrs. Dane was in her chair as usual, with hercompanion in attendance, and when she heard Sperry's voice outside sheexcused herself and was wheeled out to him, and together we heard themgo into the drawing-room. When the Robinsons arrived she and Sperryreappeared, and we waited for her customary announcement of theevening's program. When none came, even during the meal, I confess thatmy curiosity was almost painful.

  I think, looking back, that it was Sperry who turned the talk to thesupernatural, and that, to the accompaniment of considerable gibing bythe men, he told a ghost story that set the women to looking back overtheir shoulders into the dark corners beyond the zone of candle-light.All of us, I remember, except Sperry and Mrs. Dane, were skeptical asto the supernatural, and Herbert Robinson believed that while there wereso-called sensitives who actually went into trance, the controls whichtook possession of them were buried personalities of their own, releasedduring trance from the sub-conscious mind.

  "If not," he said truculently, "if they are really spirits, why can'tthey tell us what is going on, not in some vague place where they arealways happy, but here and now, in the next house? I don't ask forprophecy, but for some evidence of their knowledge. Are the Germansgetting ready to fight England? Is Horace here the gay dog some of ussuspect?"

  As I am the Horace in question, I must explain that Herbert was merelybeing facetious. My life is a most orderly and decorous one. But mywife, unfortunately, lacks a sense of humor, and I felt that the remarkmight have been more fortunate.

  "Physical phenomena!" scoffed the cynic. "I've seen it all--objectsmoving without visible hands, unexplained currents of cold air, voicethrough a trumpet--I know the whole rotten mess, and I've got a bookwhich tells how to do all the tricks. I'll bring it along some night."

  Mrs. Dane smiled, and the discussion was dropped for a time. It wasduring the coffee and cigars that Mrs. Dane made her announcement. AsAlice Robinson takes an after-dinner cigarette, a custom my wife greatlydeplores, the ladies had remained with us at the table.

  "As a matter of fact, Herbert," she said, "we intend to put yourskepticism to the test tonight. Doctor Sperry has found a medium for us,a non-professional and a patient of his, and she has kindly consented togive us a sitting."

  Herbert wheeled and looked at Sperry.

  "Hold up your right hand and state by your honor as a member in goodstanding that you have not primed her, Sperry."

  Sperry held up his hand.

  "Absolutely not," he said, gravely. "She is coming in my car. Shedoesn't know to what house or whose. She knows none of you. She is astranger to the city, and she will not even recognize the neighborhood."