Vera looked very dumb, like her mother. “Honest?”
“Not just your brain either, but everybody’s—a fact which I learned from my science magazines. What is more, just as Mother Nature never produces two sets of identical fingerprints, she also never produces two sets of identical brain frequencies. Of all the countless millions of souls there are in the world, every one has a different frequency.”
“Then why,” Vera asked, who was a cashier and proud of her mathematics, “does your dial only register up to ten thousand?”
“For ten thousand read a hundred million,” her father replied. “I’m making do with this throw-out dial and improvising the figures as need be. Your brain frequency isn’t nine eight six five, but nearer the hundred million mark, and these myriad hair-line divisions make up the intermediates. See?”
“No!” Emily declared flatly. “And I think it’s a lot of rot!”
“This clock thing,” Albert continued, undisturbed, “is the main detector needle. If I am within twenty feet of any living being and depress the control button here, the frequency of that person’s brain is immediately registered. From this instrument there goes forth an invisible beam direct to the person concerned—which insulates other people who might be present from also registering—and back along the beam on the principle of a radar echo comes the brain frequency. It is then registered in stopwatch fashion on this dial. So far, so good.”
“More than good,” Vera corrected, wondering. “It’s mighty near a miracle.”
“Having once found a brain frequency, I know exactly how to control that frequency.”
Silence. The younger members of the family wandered away, no longer interested. Vera and her mother remained, just to see how far this business was going to develop.
“It is an elementary fact,” Albert explained, “that when you have the given electrical frequency of any emanation, you can control it by the use of another frequency which is in exact ‘sympathy.’ That, basically, is the principle of remote control of airplanes, guided missiles, and so forth. In this case, though, I’m dealing with a more rarefied product—the emanation of thought waves.”
“You mean you can tell what people are thinking?” Emily asked, with sudden brightness, but Albert shook his head.
“No, dear, that’s telepathy. This is control. Hypnotism, if you like, mechanically applied instead of by the usual method. It amounts to this: a certain frequency is given off by the brain; an identical frequency is used to control it. It also follows that if thought waves can travel back along the original detector beam, other thought waves can travel forward along the control beam. And since the power of the control beam will be many times stronger than that of the detector, the outcome is obvious. Absolute mental control of the subject.”
“Sounds diabolical,” Vera said, pondering. “Like Svengali and that wench who sang for him. Trilby, wasn’t it?”
“This is scientific,” Albert said simply. “And so easy. I can command obedience as the mind behind the control beam. For instance, Vera, if I tuned in to your frequency, this is what would happen—”
Vera had not the least idea what did happen, but the rest of the family had. They watched her go to the armchair and, heavy though it was, she raised it with ease and put it on the broad table. Not satisfied with this, she made a leap that would have done credit to a circus acrobat, vaulting straight from the floor into the armchair seat. There she remained, singing in a clear soprano voice the immortal aria, “One Fine Day.”
“See what I mean?” Albert asked dryly, and switched off.
There was now a stunned and overpowering quietness. Emily looked as though her eyes had become twice as large as normal. Ethel, Betty, and Dick remained in a corner, muttering among themselves. Up in the armchair Vera stirred and looked about her. Then she started.
“In heavens’ name, how did I get up here?”
“You got there because I commanded it,” her father replied, holding up his hand to help her descend. “I have satisfied myself on three things. One, the control beam produces absolute mastery of the subject; two, the subject can be made to do things beyond the normal; and three, an ability in a certain direction can be instantly developed without the need of wearisome training. That satisfies the point that the body doesn’t matter. It’s the mind that does the work. Believe a thing sufficiently and nothing can stand in your way, and least of all the body. You, Vera, are not a strongwoman of the circus variety, yet you tossed that armchair about with perfect ease. You’re not a professional athlete either, yet you took a jump worthy of any sportswoman. Finally, you are not a singer, yet you sang an aria with all the clarity of a prima Donna.”
“I did?” Vera jabbed a finger towards herself and blinked. “But—but I don’t remember it!”
“How could you? My mind, amplified by this apparatus, carried the commands. The outflowing beam being so powerful, your own individual will foundered beneath it.… Now you see what I mean when I say I can have the world at my feet! Not a living soul can stand against this!”
If Albert expected intelligent reaction he was disappointed, for the whole business was too utterly overpowering. He gave a rather grave smile.
“You should consider yourselves privileged in that you have had this little demonstration,” he said. “There is a great deal more than this, though, far too complicated for me to waste my time telling you. You’ll see just how far-reaching this system can be as time goes on. Now perhaps you understand why I say that henceforth I shall be the master, not only of and in everyday affairs, but also in my own house?”
“But—but you can’t mean that you intend to use that terrible thing on us!” Emily cried, horrified.
“That is up to you. If you desist from your constant ridicule—and that applies to all of you—and treat me with the respect to which I’m entitled as the head of the household, then all will be well. If you do not—well, I have all your frequency numbers, which each one of you has unwittingly given me when prowling around my private outhouse, and to each number there is the control counterpart. It’s up to you,” Albert finished, laying a hand on the instrument, and his smile was full of significance.
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