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IRRESPONSIBLE HANDS

Dr. Leroy found Mrs. Walters in the attractive sitting-room, brightened by flowers (most of them sent by Christopher) that had been set apart for Penelope. The medium, usually so serene, was pale and agitated and had evidently been repairing some recent disorder of her hair and dress.

“She is asleep, doctor,” panted Seraphine, and she pointed to the closed door of the bedroom. “We have had quite a bad time.”

Then Seraphine told the doctor what had happened. She and Penelope had spent the evening pleasantly, sewing and chatting, and Mrs. Wells had seemed her old joyous self, free from fears and agitations. She listened with touching confidence when the medium assured her that her mother's exalted spirit was trying to help her. And she promised to bear in mind Dr. Leroy's injunction that, just before composing herself to sleep, she must hold the thought strongly that she was God's child, guarded from all evil by the power of God's love. Also she would search into her heart to find the obstacle that prevented her mother from coming closer to her.

About nine o'clock Penelope said she was sleepy and would lie down to rest, at which Seraphine rejoiced, hoping this might indicate a break in the spell of fear that had kept Mrs. Wells in exhausting suspense. Perhaps this was an answer to their prayers. She assisted the patient, lovingly and encouragingly, to prepare herself for the night and at half-past nine left her in bed with the light extinguished and the door leading into the sitting-room open, so that she could hear the slightest call.

About twenty minutes later, as Seraphine sat meditating, her attention was attracted by a sound from the bedroom and, looking through the door, she was surprised to see Mrs. Wells sitting up in bed and writing rapidly on a large pad from which she tore sheets now and then, letting these fall to the floor. So dim was the bedroom light that it was impossible for Penelope to see her penciled writing, nor did she even glance at the words, but held her eyes fixed in a far-away stare, as if she were guided by some distant voice or vision. After a time, Penelope ceased writing and sank back in slumber upon her pillow, allowing the pad to fall by her side.

“Automatic writing,” nodded the psychologist.

“Yes. I entered the bedroom softly and picked up the sheets. There are two communications, one in a large scrawl written by a woman—I believe, it is Penelope's mother. The other is in a small regular hand with quick powerful strokes, evidently a man's writing. There! You see the handwriting is quite different from Penelope's.”

Leroy studied the sheets in silence.

“Have you read these messages?”

“I read one of them, doctor, the one from Penelope's mother—it is full of love and wisdom—and I was just beginning the other when a terrible thing happened. That is why I sent for you. I was sitting in this rocking chair with my back turned to the bedroom door, absorbed in reading this message, when suddenly—”

“Wait! Let me read it first. Hello! It's for Captain Herrick.”

“Not all of it. Won't you read it aloud, doctor?”

The medium closed her eyes while Leroy, speaking in a low tone but distinctly, repeated this mysterious communication:

Tell Captain Herrick it was I he saw on the battlefield guiding the stumbling footsteps of my little girl, helping her to find the place where he lay. I realized that, through her love for him, which she would experience later, she would build better and higher ideals than the ones she was then holding deep within her soul. Tell him also that he is in danger from something he is carrying....

Here the writing became impossible to decipher.

“See how the powers of Love work against the powers of Evil!” mused the psychic. “I must show this to Captain Herrick. Well, what happened?”

Seraphine went on to say that she had just begun to read the second piece of automatic writing and had only finished a few lines—enough to see that it was very different from the first—when she felt a clutch of hands around her throat and realized that Fauvette had crept up cunningly from behind. There had been a struggle in which the medium tried vainly to cry out for help or to reach the bell, but her enemy was too strong for her, and she had grown weaker; then, using strategy, she let herself fall limp under the murderous hands, whereupon Fauvette, laughing triumphantly, had loosened her grip for a moment and allowed Seraphine to free herself.

“Then I caught her and held her so that I could look into her eyes and, finally, I subdued her. She cried out that she would come back again, but I forced her to lie down and almost instantly she fell into a deep sleep.”

“It was your love and your fearlessness that gave you the victory,” Leroy said quietly. Then he took up the other message and read it with darkening eyes.

“Horrible! The change must have come while she was writing this.”

He opened the bedroom door softly and, with infinite compassion in his rugged face, bent over Penelope who was sleeping peacefully, her loveliness marred by no sign of evil.

An hour passed now, during which the spiritual physician gave Seraphine her instructions for the night and made preparations for the struggle that he knew was before him.

Meantime Captain Herrick had reached the sanitarium and, finding Dr. Owen in the study, had laid before him a plan to save Penelope, if it was true, as Christopher believed, that her trouble was simply in the imagination. He proposed to divert his sweetheart's attention so that she would not know when the deadly Fauvette hour was at hand. And to this end he had arranged to have the clocks set back half an hour.

“It can't do any harm, can it, sir?” he urged with a lover's ardor, “and it may succeed. Dr. Leroy says it's fear that's killing her. Well, we'll drive away her fear. I've fixed it at the church down the street, the one that chimes the quarter-hours, to have that clock put back. And the clocks in the house are easy. What do you think of it, sir?” he asked eagerly.

The old doctor frowned in perplexity.

“I don't know, Chris. You'll have to put this up to Dr. Leroy. He's a wonderful fellow. I've had my eyes opened tonight or my soul—something.”

The two men smoked solemnly.

“I believe we're going to save Penelope, my boy—somehow. It's a mighty queer world. I don't know but we are all more or less possessed by evil spirits, Chris. What are these brainstorms that overwhelm the best of us? Why do good men and women, on some sudden, devilish impulse, do abominable things, criminal things, that they never meant to do? We doctors pretend to be skeptical, but we all come up against creepy stuff, inside confession stuff that we don't talk about.”

He was silent again.

“There was a patient of mine in Chicago, a tough old rounder,” Owen resumed, “who changed overnight into the straightest chap you ever heard of—because he went down to the edge of the Great Shadow—he was one of the passengers saved from the Titanic. He told me that when he was struggling there in the icy ocean, after the ship sank, he saw white shapes hovering over the waters, holding up the drowning! I never mentioned that until tonight.”

They smoked without speaking.

“I—I had an experience like that myself, sir,” ventured Christopher. “I've never spoken of it either—people would call me crazy, but—that night when I lay out there in front of Montidier, among the dead and dying, I saw a white shape moving over the battlefields.”

“You did?”

“Yes, sir. It was the figure of a woman—coming towards me—she seemed to be leading Penelope. I saw her distinctly—she had a beautiful face.”

Silence again.

Dr. Leroy joined them presently and, on learning of Captain Herrick's plan, he made no objections to it, but said it would fail.

“We are dealing with an evil power, gentlemen, that is far too clever to be deceived by such a trick,” he assured them; but Christopher was resolved to try.

Leroy then described Seraphine's narrow escape and showed them the automatic writing, the message from Penelope's mother, not the evil message; whereupon Christopher, in amazement, gave the corroborative testimony of his battlefield experience. The psychologist nodded gravely.

At five minutes of twelve (correct time) Seraphine sent down word that Mrs. Wells had awakened and was asking eagerly for Captain Herrick.

“Go to her at once, my young friend,” directed Leroy. “Do all you can to encourage her and make her happy. Tell her there is nothing to fear because her mother's pure soul is guarding her. Show her this message from her mother. And whatever happens do not let your own faith waver. I assure you our precautions are taken against everything. God bless you.”

When Christopher had gone, Leroy told Dr. Owen about the second communication in automatic writing which he had withheld from Captain Herrick.

“This is undoubtedly from the evil spirit,” he said, and he read it aloud:

“I was one of many loosed upon earth when the war began. I rode screaming upon clouds of poison gas. I danced over red battlefields. I entered one of the Gray ones, an officer, and revelled with him in ravished villages. Then I saw Penelope going about on errands of mercy, I saw her beautiful body and the little spots on her soul that she did not know about, and when her nerves were shattered, I entered into her. Now she is mine. I defy YOU to drive me out. Already her star burns scarlet through a mist of evil memories. I see it now as she sleeps! I shall come back tonight and make her dream.”

“You see what we have against us,” Leroy said, and his face was sad, yet fixed with a stern purpose.

And now the old materialist asked anxiously, not scoffingly: “Doctor, do you really believe that this spirit can drag Mrs. Wells down?”

“That depends upon herself. Mrs. Wells knows what she must do. I have told her. If she does this, she will be safe. If not—”

His eyes were inexpressibly tragic, and at this moment the neighboring chimes resounded musically through the quiet sanitarium—a quarter to twelve!