That had come in direct answer to my question as to what would
cure Parkes, and it was without hesitation or delay that I wrote to
Symes. I reminded him that he had said that he had no objection to
any possible remedy, provided it was not harmful, being tried on his
patient, and I asked him to treat him with X-rays. The whole sequence
of events had been so frankly amazing, that I believe the veriest
sceptic would not have done otherwise than I did. Our sittings continued, but after this day we had no further evidence
of this second control. It looked as if the intelligence (even the
most incredulous will allow me, for the sake of convenience, to call
that intelligence Machaon) that had described this room, and told Mrs.
Forrest that he had work to do here, had finished his task. Machaon had
said, or so my interpretation was, that X-rays would cure Parkes. In
justification of this view it is proper to quote from a letter which I
got from Symes a week later. “There is no need for you to come up to break to Parkes that an
  operation lies in front of him. In answer to your request, and
  without a grain of faith in its success, I treated him with X-rays,
  which I assured you were useless. To-day, to speak quite frankly,
  I don’t know what to think, for the growth has been steadily
  diminishing in size and hardness, and it is perfectly evident that it
  is being absorbed and is disappearing. “The treatment through which I put Parkes is that of ----. Here in
  this hospital we have had patients to whom it brought no shadow of
  benefit. Often it had been continued on these deluded wretches till
  any operation which might possibly have been successful was out of
  the question owing to the encroachment of the growth. But from the
  first dose of the X-rays, Parkes began to get better, the growth was
  first arrested, and then diminished. “I am trying to put the whole thing before you with as much
  impartiality as I can command. So, on the other side, you must
  remember that Parkes’s was never a proved case of cancer. I told
  you that it could not be proved till the exploratory operation took
  place. All the symptoms pointed to cancer--you see, I am trying to
  save my own face--but my diagnosis, though confirmed by ----, may
  have been wrong. If he only had what we call a benign tumour, the
  case is not so extraordinary; there have been plenty of cases when
  a benign tumour has disappeared by absorption or what not. It is
  unusual, but by no means unknown. For instance....

  “But Parkes’s case was quite different. I certainly believe he had
  a cancerous growth, and thought that an operation was inevitable if
  his life was to be saved. Even then, the most I hoped for was an
  alleviation of pain, as the disease progressed, and a year or two
  more, at the most, of life. Instead, I apply another remedy, at
  your suggestion, and if he goes on as he has been doing, the growth
  will be a nodule in another week or two, and I should expect it to
  disappear altogether. Taking everything into consideration, if you
  asked me the question whether this X-ray treatment was the cause of
  the cure, I should be obliged to say ‘Yes.’ I don’t believe in such
  a treatment, but I believe it is curing him. I suppose that it was
  suggested to you by a fraudulent, spiritualistic medium in a feigned
  trance, who was inspired by Aesculapius or some exploded heathen
  deity, for I remember you said you were going down into the country
  for some spiritual business....

  “Well, Parkes is getting better, and I am so old-fashioned a fellow
  that I would sooner a patient of mine got better by incredible
  methods, than died under my skilful knife.... Of course, we trained
  people know nothing, but we have to act according to the best chances
  of our ignorance. I entirely believed that the knife was the only
  means of saving the man, and now, when I stand confuted, the only
  thing that I can save is my honesty, which I hereby have done. Let me
  know, at your leisure, whether you just thought you would, on your
  own idea, like me to try X-rays, or whether some faked voice from the
  grave suggested it. “Ever yours,
                                                         “Godfrey Symes. “P.S.--If it was some beastly voice from the grave, you might tell me
  in confidence who the medium was. I want to be fair....”

That is the story; the reader will explain it according to his
temperament. And as I have told Parkes, who is now back with me again,
to look into the garden-room before post-time and take a registered
packet to the office, it is time that I got it ready for him. So here
is the completed packet in manuscript, to be sent to the printer’s. From my window I shall see him go briskly along the street down which
Machaon walked on a snowy morning. Negotium Perambulans....




Negotium Perambulans.... The casual tourist in West Cornwall may just possibly have noticed,
as he bowled along over the bare high plateau between Penzance and
the Land’s End, a dilapidated signpost pointing down a steep lane
and bearing on its battered finger the faded inscription “Polearn
2 miles,” but probably very few have had the curiosity to traverse
those two miles in order to see a place to which their guide-books
award so cursory a notice. It is described there, in a couple of
unattractive lines, as a small fishing village with a church of no
particular interest except for certain carved and painted wooden panels
(originally belonging to an earlier edifice) which form an altar-rail. But the church at St. Creed (the tourist is reminded) has a similar
decoration far superior in point of preservation and interest, and thus
even the ecclesiastically disposed are not lured to Polearn. So meagre
a bait is scarce worth swallowing, and a glance at the very steep lane
which in dry weather presents a carpet of sharp-pointed stones, and
after rain a muddy watercourse, will almost certainly decide him not
to expose his motor or his bicycle to risks like these in so sparsely
populated a district. Hardly a house has met his eye since he left
Penzance, and the possible trundling of a punctured bicycle for half
a dozen weary miles seems a high price to pay for the sight of a few
painted panels. Polearn, therefore, even in the high noon of the tourist season, is
little liable to invasion, and for the rest of the year I do not
suppose that a couple of folk a day traverse those two miles (long ones
at that) of steep and stony gradient. I am not forgetting the postman
in this exiguous estimate, for the days are few when, leaving his
pony and cart at the top of the hill, he goes as far as the village,
since but a few hundred yards down the lane there stands a large
white box, like a sea-trunk, by the side of the road, with a slit for
letters and a locked door.