I perceive you have joined us....” The room was dark except for
the ruby-shaded lamp in front of Cardinal Newman, but to Mr. Tilly’s
emancipated perceptions the withdrawal of mere material light made no
difference, and he idly wondered why it was generally supposed that
disembodied spirits like himself produced their most powerful effects
in the dark. He could not imagine the reason for that, and, what
puzzled him still more, there was not to his spiritual perception any
sign of those colleagues of his (for so he might now call them) who
usually attended Mrs. Cumberbatch’s séances in such gratifying numbers. Though she had been moaning and muttering a long time now, Mr. Tilly
was in no way conscious of the presence of Abibel and Sweet William
and Sapphire and Napoleon. “They ought to be here by now,” he said to
himself. But while he still wondered at their absence, he saw to his amazed
disgust that the medium’s hand, now covered with a black glove, and
thus invisible to ordinary human vision in the darkness, was groping
about the table and clearly searching for the megaphone-trumpet which
lay there. He found that he could read her mind with the same ease,
though far less satisfaction, as he had read Miss Ida’s half an hour
ago, and knew that she was intending to apply the trumpet to her own
mouth and pretend to be Abibel or Semiramis or somebody, whereas she
affirmed that she never touched the trumpet herself. Much shocked at
this, he snatched up the trumpet himself, and observed that she was not
in trance at all, for she opened her sharp black eyes, which always
reminded him of buttons covered with American cloth, and gave a great
gasp. “Why, Mr. Tilly!” she said. “On the spiritual plane too!”

The rest of the circle was now singing “Lead, kindly Light” in order to
encourage Cardinal Newman, and this conversation was conducted under
cover of the hoarse crooning voices. But Mr. Tilly had the feeling that
though Mrs. Cumberbatch saw and heard him as clearly as he saw her, he
was quite imperceptible to the others. “Yes, I’ve been killed,” he said, “and I want to get into touch with
the material world. That’s why I came here. But I want to get into
touch with other spirits too, and surely Abibel or Mespot ought to be
here by this time.”

He received no answer, and her eyes fell before his like those of a
detected charlatan. A terrible suspicion invaded his mind. “What? Are you a fraud, Mrs. Cumberbatch?” he asked. “Oh, for shame! Think of all the guineas I have paid you.”

“You shall have them all back,” said Mrs. Cumberbatch. “But don’t tell
of me.”

She began to whimper, and he remembered that she often made that sort
of sniffling noise when Abibel was taking possession of her. “That usually means that Abibel is coming,” he said, with withering
sarcasm. “Come along, Abibel: we’re waiting.”

“Give me the trumpet,” whispered the miserable medium. “Oh, please give
me the trumpet!”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Tilly indignantly. “I would
sooner use it myself.”

She gave a sob of relief. “Oh do, Mr. Tilly!” she said. “What a wonderful idea! It will be
most interesting to everybody to hear you talk just after you’ve been
killed and before they know. It would be the making of me! And I’m
not a fraud, at least not altogether. I do have spiritual perceptions
sometimes; spirits do communicate through me. And when they won’t come
through it’s a dreadful temptation to a poor woman to--to supplement
them by human agency. And how could I be seeing and hearing you now,
and be able to talk to you--so pleasantly, I’m sure--if I hadn’t
super-normal powers? You’ve been killed, so you assure me, and yet I
can see and hear you quite plainly. Where did it happen, may I ask, if
it’s not a painful subject?”

“Hyde Park Corner, half an hour ago,” said Mr. Tilly. “No, it only hurt
for a moment, thanks. But about your other suggestion----”

While the third verse of “Lead, kindly Light” was going on, Mr. Tilly
applied his mind to this difficult situation. It was quite true that
if Mrs. Cumberbatch had no power of communication with the unseen
she could not possibly have seen him. But she evidently had, and had
heard him too, for their conversation had certainly been conducted
on the spirit-plane, with perfect lucidity. Naturally, now that he
was a genuine spirit, he did not want to be mixed up in fraudulent
mediumship, for he felt that such a thing would seriously compromise
him on the other side, where, probably, it was widely known that Mrs.
Cumberbatch was a person to be avoided. But, on the other hand, having
so soon found a medium through whom he could communicate with his
friends, it was hard to take a high moral view, and say that he would
have nothing whatever to do with her. “I don’t know if I trust you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have a moment’s
peace if I thought that you would be sending all sorts of bogus
messages from me to the circle, which I wasn’t responsible for at all. You’ve done it with Abibel and Mespot. How can I know that when I don’t
choose to communicate through you, you won’t make up all sorts of
piffle on your own account?”

She positively squirmed in her chair. “Oh, I’ll turn over a new leaf,” she said. “I will leave all that sort
of thing behind me. And I am a medium. Look at me! Aren’t I more real
to you than any of the others? Don’t I belong to your plane in a way
that none of the others do? I may be occasionally fraudulent, and I can
no more get Napoleon here than I can fly, but I’m genuine as well. Oh,
Mr. Tilly, be indulgent to us poor human creatures! It isn’t so long
since you were one of us yourself.”

The mention of Napoleon, with the information that Mrs. Cumberbatch had
never been controlled by that great creature, wounded Mr. Tilly again. Often in this darkened room he had held long colloquies with him, and
Napoleon had given him most interesting details of his life on St.
Helena, which, so Mr. Tilly had found, were often borne out by Lord
Rosebery’s pleasant volume _The Last Phase_. But now the whole thing
wore a more sinister aspect, and suspicion as solid as certainty bumped
against his mind. “Confess!” he said. “Where did you get all that Napoleon talk from? You
told us you had never read Lord Rosebery’s book, and allowed us to look
through your library to see that it wasn’t there. Be honest for once,
Mrs. Cumberbatch.”

She suppressed a sob. “I will,” she said. “The book was there all the time. I put it into
an old cover called ‘Elegant Extracts....’ But I’m not wholly a fraud. We’re talking together, you a spirit and I a mortal female. They can’t
hear us talk. But only look at me, and you’ll see.... You can talk to
them through me, if you’ll only be so kind. I don’t often get in touch
with a genuine spirit like yourself.”

Mr. Tilly glanced at the other sitters and then back to the medium,
who, to keep the others interested, was making weird gurgling noises
like an undervitalised siphon.